Atuabo not shut down – Sipa-Yankey

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana National Gas Company Dr George Sipa-Yankey has dismissed claims that the company’s processing unit at Atuabo in the Western Region has been shut down.

He said the Company is not operating as a result of the breakdown of the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel at the Jubilee Fields.

Tullow Ghana Limited on Tuesday, July 7 announced an “unplanned” shutdown of FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, indicating that the situation will temporarily affect export of gas supply to the gas processing plant.

Many, therefore, construed this as a shutdown of the gas plant.

In an interview with TV3’s Sandra Amarquaye on Wednesday, July 8, Dr Sipa-Yankey further clarified the situation and intimated that they are in readiness for an alert from Tullow of gas export resumption.

“We are not actually operating and processing gas,” he admitted.

“In situations of this nature, we are keeping ourselves in readiness to be able to process as soon as Tullow is ready. So we haven’t shut down,” he stressed.

But he admitted that the situation is affecting the Gas Company given its position in the gas value chain.

“Unfortunately for us, we are in a very helpless position because if you look at the gas value chain, we are in the middle,” he stated, adding that operations have been affected somewhat.

He expressed sadness over the turn of events regarding the operation of the gas company, saying: “we we were very hopeful that when this work is finished people will see the difference but now I can say it.”

The disruption in gas supply is expected to worsen the country’s power crisis as there is going to be a shortfall for the Volta River Authority (VRA).