The Jubilee Partners have announced the commencement of the physical tie-in of their flexible riser of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, to the onshore gas processing facility of the Ghana National Gas Company Limited.

This follows the issuance of the relevant permits by the Energy Commission and the Petroleum Commission to affirm that the two parties can safely tie in their facilities, Tullow Ghana Limited said in a statement.

“The permit which was issued on 27^th October, 2014 allows the limited flow of 16 mmscf of gas per day to the GNGC’s Atuabo plant for the commissioning phase of the project and shall be valid for six (6) weeks.”

The physical tie in is expected to take a week to complete and will pave the way for the pre-commissioning and commissioning of the GNGC’s gas processing plant at Atuabo.

On completion of the commissioning, which the statement said will take a minimum of 42 days, gas will be made available to the GNGC in commercial quantities for supply to the Volta River Authority’s (VRA) thermal power plant at Aboadze.

In a meeting with the Minister for Energy & Petroleum, Charles Darku, General Manager of Tullow Ghana, the Operator of the Jubilee field affirmed Tullow's commitment to the realization of gas flow.

He said, “This is a significant milestone in the process towards supplying gas in commercial quantities from the Jubilee field to GNGC on a regular basis and we are excited at its achievement.  Given the step changing role such regular supply of gas will play in the socio-economic development of Ghana, we are committed to ensuring timely supply to the GNGC.

“We look forward to the timely completion, certification and permitting of the remaining processes by the relevant Regulatory agencies to enable the commercial supply of gas to begin”.