Atuabo Gas Powers Electricity Generation At Aboadze

The Volta River Authority (VRA) has begun daily production of between 130 and 140 megawatts (MW) of electricity at its thermal plant at Aboadze with gas from the gas project at Atuabo in the Western Region. This follows the successful processing of between 32 and 35 million standard cubic feet (MMSCF) of lean gas daily by the Ghana National Gas Company (Ghana Gas), operators of the gas infrastructure project. The process forms part of the commissioning activities of Ghana Gas. This was contained in a statement issued in Accra yesterday. The statement, signed by the Board Chairman of Ghana Gas, Dr Kwesi Botchwey, said as of Monday, December 1, 2014, activities and processes had been sufficiently stabilised and Ghana Gas expected that the pace of commissioning would continue to be consolidated over the next two weeks. �It is gratifying to note that at this stage the electricity being generated by the VRA operating units at the Aboadze Thermal Power Complex is currently produced exclusively with gas from the Atuabo plant,� it said. It said Ghana Gas had been advised that VRA was currently utilising the available gas from the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) in the Tema power production enclave and, therefore, intended to ramp up gas production from 60 MMSCF to the target flow of 120 MMSCF. That, it said, would be the full complement of gas requirement at Aboadze, sufficient for the generation of about 550MW of electricity by the end of December 2014. According to the statement, that would be subject to the issuance of the requisite permits from the Energy Commission and the Petroleum Commission to allow the company to process and transport gas above 60 MMSCF. It said the VRA would also need to confirm its readiness to take the higher flows as and when they were available.