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General News of Tuesday, 11 March 2014

Source: tv3network.com

Energy Minister unsure when Gas Processing Plant will be completed

After so much has been said about the time of completion of the $1 billion gas processing plant at Atuabo, answers still fall short of a definite date.

While some experts have pegged the completion date at the end of the first quarter, others have put the date in the last quarter of 2014.

Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gas Company Dr George Sipa-Yankey is among the school which has pegged the completion date of the processing plant at the end of this month.

He was definite in an interview with TV3's Sandra Amarquaye that the completion date of the China Development Bank-sponsored project will be “the end of April”.

“So between 31st March and 28th April, all these activities will go on, trying to ensure that the pre-commissionary activity is finalized,” Dr Sipa-Yankey said on Monday, March 10.

“Any effects that need to be corrected is rectified and then after that 28th April or let’s say the end of April, the first gas will flow from the Jubilee Field into our plants.”

However, Minister of Energy and Petroleum Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah says he cannot vouch for the completion date of the project though he affirmed that completion will depend on how quick and successful events turn out.

“[But] I am very comfortable to say that gas in the volumes that we need for the power plants; gas is in the reasonable volumes that we will need for the thermal plants should really be flowing in the last quarter of this year,” Mr Buah told our reporter.

The project, which is being undertaken by Chinese contractors Sinopec, is expected to furnish the Volta River Authority (VRA) with 120 million standard cubic meter of gas daily, when completed.