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I am a business reporter with Daily Guide and Business Guide newspapers published by the Western Group of Companies. I was a general reporter when I joined Daily Guide in 2006, but along the line I realized the need to specialize. So I found business reporting as the best area to specialize and I have been on the desk for about four years now. Since I started reporting on business related issues my interest has being in the areas of telecommunications, the extractive industry (ie. oil, gas and mining), and the Small and Medium scale Enterprise (SME) sector. I have a page dedicated to SMEs in the weekly Business Guide newspaper were I write features on the SME sector in Ghana. In view of this I was adjudged the best SME reporter for 2009 during the Ghana Journalist Association (GJA) awards in 2010. This has further motivated me to pursue development driven stories which will help change policies and enhance the livelihoods of Ghanaians. I am a member of the Ghana Journalists Association and an executive member of the Network of Communication Reporters (NCR) in Ghana.

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Gas Ready By January

By Esther Awuah

Ghana is expected to produce its first gas from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant by January 2013 after the completion of the first phase of the project by December 2012.

The first phase involves the construction and installation of equipment.

Victor Kofi Sunu-Attah, a Project Development Manager from the Ghana National Gas Company (GNGC), stated this during a presentation to selected journalists at an oil and gas training programme in Accra.

The initial projected feed gas rate from Atuabo will be 150 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd).

The project, being undertaken by GNGC and its Chinese contractors Sinopec, includes the construction of associated infrastructure at Atuabo and surrounding communities in the Western region.

The facility will process gas from the Jubilee field into clean fuels and feedstock for the domestic and export markets while promoting the development of the country’s petrochemical industries to eliminate the flaring of gas.

Mr. Sunu-Attah indicated that “GNGC has been given its marching orders by the Ministry of Energy to give the first gas to the Volta River Authority (VRA) by February of the same year (2013).”

He explained that there has to be a pre-commissioning and commissioning of the pipeline. Pre-commissioning is a series of processes carried out on the pipeline before the final product is introduced while commissioning means introducing the gas into the pipeline.

Mr. Sunu-Attah noted that the first phase of the project includes the “completion of storage facilities and an offshore buoy for export of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and condensate at Domunli in the Western region.

He said the medium to long-term development and expansion phase of the project includes a network of pipelines from the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facility and other reserves from the basin to the gas processing plant.

In the near future, he said GNGC will float shares on the stock market to ensure “wider Ghanaian participation in petroleum activities and economic and social benefits from broadening ownership in the country’s natural resources.”

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