We’ll monetise all natural gas liquids – Buah, GNGC

All natural gas liquids (NGLs), except Isopentane–less than 0.5 percent–contained in the gas extracted from the jubilee oil fields and processed by the Atuabo Gas Plant in the Western region are monetised, Energy and Petroleum Minister Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah has told Parliament’s Government Assurances Committee.

Mr Buah, who appeared before the Committee with the CEO of the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC) Dr George Sipa Yankey, said the Government is searching for firms that can use Isopentane to produce energy so that the liquid would be commercialised rather than flared.

“We are anxious to make sure that we monetise all the liquids…we have done a lot and we are going to make sure the Isopentane that is lifted is monetised as quickly as we can get a commercial entity to take those liquids,” he said.

Dr Sipa Yankey also explained to the Committee that Isopentane is actually a waste product from the gas processing system but added that GNGC is striving to monetise it because of the ‘no flaring’ policy of Ghana’s petroleum industry.

“I don’t want us to leave here with any impression that we are burning money.

“The Isopentane…in actual fact is a waste product. In most countries, they are flared. But we in Ghana, because of the [GNGC’s] zero flaring policy, we are dripping some of that into even the condensates that we produce” for power production, he added.

Dr Sipa Yankey said: “We have been working with a company that is prepared to take that waste product and then generate that into power and so hopefully in the next few months, once it finishes the arrangement and the company gets its plant established, the waste product will be used to generate power of about 21 Megawatts…so it’s all part and parcel of a comprehensive programme that is being done. So we want to make sure that every molecule of liquid is monetised.

Isopentane, C5H12, also called methylbutane or 2-methylbutane, is a branched-chain alkane with five carbon atoms.

It is an extremely volatile and extremely flammable liquid at room temperature and pressure.

The normal boiling point is just a few degrees above room temperature and Isopentane will readily boil and evaporate away on a warm day.

Isopentane is commonly used in conjunction with liquid nitrogen to achieve a liquid bath temperature of ?160 °C. It is 1% or less of natural gas.