Petroleum Minister, Emmanuel Kofi Buah has hinted repair works on the Floating Production Storage Offloading vessel, FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, is not likely to be completed on the set date because of a significant setback to resolve the fault on the vessel.

The vessel’s turret have suffered some damage, making the it difficult to receive crude oil from subsea pipes.

Tullow Ghana Limited, lead partners in the Jubilee Oil Fiedl, served a notice to the public on March 20 that it will be shutting down the facility for what it described as “mandatory inspection and maintenance”.

The letter which was signed by the Chief Executive of GRIDCO, William Amuna, said the maintenance was expected to last for two weeks.

However, on April 7 -- the date the mandatory maintenance was expected to be completed -- another notice was served to say Tullow Ghana Limited wanted to make sure all outstanding issues are addressed therefore it needed another extra two weeks.

But speaking to  Joy Business on the sidelines of the 7th edition of the Annual Ghana Oil, Gas & Power Summit, Mr. Buah said the FPSO situation is “a very complicated problem and a lot goes into doing fixing it”.

“I have been on the FPSO and I know how complicated the process is,” he said, adding it is unlikely it will be ready on the set date, April 21.

“My wish is that all of that will be done for us to have gas and to produce oil”, he said but explained, the routine maintenance is important to give the FPSO some integrity in oil production.

Mr. Buah believed non-functioning of the facility will affect power production in the country in some days to come.

He promised the government is committed to ensuring that the problems facing the facility are addressed for production to resume.