The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has stated that based on its projections, the load management programme currently being experienced should end by the first week of May 2013.

In a statement signed by its Head of Communications, Edward Bawa, the ministry however warned that the feat will only be achieved “at a very high operational cost due to crude oil purchase.”

“Indeed it costs government at least 50 Million dollars in every 20 days to purchase light crude oil for the Volta River Authority (VRA) to generate power.”

Below is a copy of the statement as released by the Ministry

The Ministry of Energy and Petroleum has noted with great concern a statement issued on April 29, 2013 by the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo) and same published on many media platforms.

The statement states inter alia “WAPCo confirmed efforts towards resumption of gas transportation business by 30 April 2013” and that their “schedule had slipped because of two main challenges – contracting and line cleaner defect”.

The ministry wishes to state very strongly its disappointment on the turn of events particularly as this is not the very first time WAPCo is failing to deliver on its promise of resuming gas transportation to Ghana since the damage to the gas pipeline on August 28 2013.

The ministry however assures Ghanaians that over the past months the managers of the power sub-sector have been busy at work to ensure that we take care of the power deficit created as a result of the curtailment of gas supplies to Ghana with or without the resumption of gas supplies from Nigeria.

Indeed in the past few months we have been able to bring on stream 132MW from the Takoradi 3 Thermal Power Plant (T3) and on the 3rd of May 2013 His Excellency the President of the Republic, John Dramani Mahama will officially commission one of the Units of the Bui Hydro Project (133MW). This means that we have been able to add to our installed generation capacity a total of 265 MW. This sufficiently takes care of the 200MW that was taken off as a result of Sunon Asogli not running because of lack of natural gas.

The ministry can therefore state that based on our current peak load demand and available generation capacity, the load management programme should end by the first week of May 2013 as promised earlier by the president of the Republic.

It must however be noted that this feat is being achieved at a very high operational cost due to crude oil purchase. Indeed it costs government at least 50 Million dollars in every 20 days to purchase light crude oil (LCO) for the Volta River Authority (VRA) to generate power. These huge costs notwithstanding, government will continue to ensure that fuel is made available to VRA to generate power at all times.

The ministry wishes to thank Ghanaians for their support during these trying times and promises to work assiduously to ensure that the necessary megawatts are added to our system until the 5000MW is achieved by 2015.

Edward Bawa

Head of Communications,

Ministry Of Energy