VRA in talks with other gas suppliers to ease power generation problems

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Created on Monday, 07 April 2014 08:55

The Volta River Authority (VRA), led by its Chief Executive Mr. Kirk Koffi, has begun discussions with other gas suppliers in Nigeria to secure more of the fuel via the West African Gas Pipeline to ease current troubles with power generation.

The discussions, according to Samuel Fletcher, VRA's Communications Manager, are far advanced and pricing of the commodity is now being determined.

“We are talking to other suppliers in Nigeria who are not part of NGas. There are now discussions ongoing on how much to pay for the commodity,” he said.

“The West Africa Gas Pipeline is designed to carry up to 200 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, so it won't be a problem to transport any gas we secure outside NGas.”

Supply of gas from NGas, the VRA's main supplier in Nigeria, has been poor within the last few months -- falling from the expected 120 million cubic feet contractual volume to as low as 50 million cubic feet last month.

NGas is made up of Chevron, Shell and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The poor fuel supply coupled with maintenance and expansion works on some thermal plants at Aboadze in the Western Region, created an electricity deficit of some 300 megawatts in the national grid around three weeks ago - necessitating a load management programme by the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).

Subsequent improvement in gas supply has reduced the deficit.

Total peak demand is now about 1,950 megawatts, while power producers are able to supply 1,839 megawatts to the grid, creating a deficit of about 111 megawatts.

source: myjoyonline