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General News of Friday, 17 July 2015

Source: tv3network.com

‘Gas unavailability cause of worsening power crisis’

Head of Corporate Affairs VRA, Samuel Fletcher Head of Corporate Affairs VRA, Samuel Fletcher

The Volta River Authority VRA, has attributed the worsening power crisis to unavailability of fuel to operate its thermal plants at Aboadze.

Energy watchers have suggested that VRA is unable to purchase crude oil due to lack of funds. The country's power deficit has increased from 400 to 600 megawatts.

On July 8, Tullow Oil Ghana announced an unplanned shut down of its FPSO at the jubilee field, rendering the Ghana Gas Processing Plant at Atuabo unproductive. The situation has contributed to the intensity of the power crisis, increasing the power deficit from 400 to 600megawatts.

The Head of Corporate Affairs at the Volta River Authority, Samuel Fletcher, told TV3 some plants at Aboadze have been shut down due to the unavailability of fuel.

"In the absence of gas you always some form of a rise in deficit because certain plants cannot run when there is no gas. At every point in time depending on factors at play, the crisis worsens or improves and in this case we have had a situation where the cases has relatively worsened because we don't have gas".

Tullow oil Ghana has not given a time frame within which the FPSO would be fixed.

"We get frustrated when we can't produce for consumers. You also know that this is the commodity we sell".

The Electricity Company of Ghana is indebted to the VRA to the tune of 1.2 billion cedis contributing to its inability to purchase crude oil for its thermal plants .

ECG is yet to review the load shedding guide since it elapsed in April, a situation that has led to erratic power supply across the country.

The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission, PURC, which recently announced plans to increase electricity tariff by a whopping 51 percent, says a meeting would be held with the utility companies on the current crisis .

"Consumers are going off for five days and three days and that's certainly not load shedding. The issue is that the load shedding is mixed up with faults. We are having a meeting to find out how we can solve the issue of communication as far as the situation we are going through is concerned" says PURC Director of Public Affairs Nanayaa Gyantuah.

Meanwhile Energy Analyst Ishmael Edjekumhene is of the view the utilities have failed to communicate the exact problems to consumer.

"It is annoying when you are not being told what the problem is. Wherein lies the equity? If we have 100 to share let's intensify; it shouldn't happen that somebody gets it 24/7 and someone else doesn't have it for one week".