THERMAL PLANT FACES SETBACK (SPREAD)

THE Takoradi Thermal Plant cannot run on natural gas as has been anticipated due to the lack of supply of natural gas from Nigeria.
Officials of the Volta River Authority (VRA), who had earlier converted the plant to run on natural gas for the production of power at a far cheaper cost, have been compelled to re-convert the plant to run on crude oil.
Under the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) project, Nigeria is supposed to supply natural gas to Ghana for the running of the plant but following the inability of Nigeria to meet Ghana’s demand, the project has been put on hold for the time being.
According to a source at the VRA, the signals from Nigeria indicated that that country could not meet its domestic demand for gas, let alone supply some to Ghana.
In view of the difficulty involved in the supply of natural gas, the VRA has been compelled to re-convert the thermal plant to run on crude oil, while it awaits the outcome of negotiations between the two countries for the supply of natural gas.
At the moment, the VRA and the Takoradi International Company (TICO) produce 550 megawatts of electricity using crude oil at a very high cost to the nation.
“We cannot tell you exactly how much it costs to produce power with crude oil, compared with gas, due to the unstable world price of crude oil. But on authority we can say it will be much cheaper with natural gas,” a source at the VRA told the Daily Graphic.
It said after the conversion of the plant to run on natural gas, the VRA initially test-ran it for six hours and continued throughout the following day to confirm its readiness.
The authority’s valves, according to the source, had been closed after the successful test run and change but had to be reopened in view of the lack of natural gas flow from Nigeria.
When contacted, the Head of Corporate Affairs at the West African Gas Pipeline Company, Ms Harriet Wereko-Brobby, attributed the difficulties to technical problems.
Asked about the way forward if Nigeria failed to supply the natural gas, she expressed the hope that even in the face of the difficulty in meeting its domestic demand for natural gas, Nigeria would honour its promise.
“One of the things we must also look at is that we are still working on our converter station in Nigeria which will be completed by the end of this year,” she said.
Ms Wereko-Brobby expressed the hope that there would soon be solutions to the hitches.
In December 2004, Benin, Ghana, Nigeria and Togo reached an agreement to establish a common framework for the operation of the West African Gas Pipeline Company across the four countries.