President John Dramani Mahama has stressed the need for Ghana to construct a second gas processing plant to accommodate increasing gas volumes expected from ongoing upstream investments.
Speaking during a citizens engagement in Koforidua as part of his Eastern Region resetting tour the President explained that new investments in the country’s oil and gas sector will significantly increase gas supply beyond the capacity of the existing processing infrastructure.
According to President Mahama partners in the Jubilee field are investing about 2 billion dollars to increase gas production while Eni is also committing approximately 1.5 billion dollars to expand gas supply.
Referring to the existing Atuabo Gas Processing Plant the President noted that the expected gas volumes will exceed the plant’s processing capacity making the construction of a second Gas Processing Plant necessary.
He explained that the proposed Gas Processing Plant 2 will process excess gas and supply fuel to thermal power plants and electricity generating companies that depend on natural gas for power production.
President Mahama stated that the expansion could significantly strengthen Ghana’s electricity generation capacity and improve long term energy security.
“With more gas than the existing plant can handle when this is added to our current generation capacity we could reach nearly 6,000 megawatts. That means for the next 10 to 15 years even without building new plants we should have enough electricity for Ghana,” he said.
The President also indicated that growing economic activity and increased investment in the country are driving higher electricity demand making reliable and sustainable power supply increasingly important.
He disclosed that national electricity consumption has risen from about 3,500 megawatts when his administration took office to a peak of around 4,300 megawatts.
President Mahama added that strengthening generation capacity and creating redundancy in the power system would also position Ghana to export more electricity to neighbouring countries including Burkina Faso and Togo thereby generating additional foreign exchange revenue.