About $1m spent daily to import crude for power generation

The country could be saving about 1 million dollars a day if work on the first gas processing plant is fast tracked.

According a World Bank report, Ghana is spending this amount daily to import crude oil for power generation.

Work on the plant, located at Atuabo in the western region, has delayed due to failure on the part of government to release funds on time to continue the project.

The World Bank report stated that though “Ghana is fortunate that it has its own gas and can also import gas from Nigeria via [West Africa Gas Pipeline] WAGP…delays in the implementation of the Jubilee-associated gas infrastructure and supply interruptions on the WAGP have combined to produce an acute gas shortage at present”.

It maintained that this shortage should be a powerful incentive for government to ensure the work is completed on time.

The report, however, maintained that Ghana’s power challenges will not be over even when the gas starts flowing from Nigeria as well as from the plant in the Western region.

This, it said, called for a rigorous plan to ensure the country generates power from all its oil fields.

It concluded that without a plan to ensure full cost recovery or scrapping of subsidies in the sector, managers of the gas facilities could still make serious losses.