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As oil and gas industry analysts in Ghana raise concerns about the possible danger the further delay of Ghana’s Gas infrastructure poses to the Jubilee oil field, Tullow Oil insists, the oil wells holding the gas are safe.
Some oil and gas analysts in Ghana intimated to Ventures Africa that the wells storing gas on the Jubilee field can no longer do so beyond June this year.
This means the Gas infrastructure being constructed to receive the gas from the Jubilee field should be completed in the next two months or risk damaging the wells.
Ghana’s President John Mahama together with the Energy and Petroleum Minister Armah Kofi Buah recently took a tour of the facility and both predicted the project will now be completed by the end of 2013.
But two influential groups in Ghana, IMANI Ghana and Africa Center for Energy Policy after separate tours of the facility said the most realistic time for the Gas infrastructure project will be at the end of the first quarter of 2014.
IMANI noted in the report that: “At the current rate of completion we believe the project will be ready to deliver gas for power production in Ghana sometime in early 2014”, adding that: “The project may still be fast-tracked for completion by end of 2013 if the flow of funds were to be assured for any such acceleration”.
The Africa Centre for Energy Policy also in an interview with Ventures Africa says the project is likely to complete the project in the first quarter of 2014.
The Executive Director Muhammed Amin Adam said “We have also toured the project site and we also believe completing the plant this year will be over-stretching it. I must admit however that they have done well by burying most of the pipelines which is a good sign. But overall, we think it will be difficult to complete this year”.
Despite the looming danger the Head of Media Relations for Tullow Oil Plc, George Cazenove insists they can hold on till the gas processing plant is ready.
“My understanding is that we can cope with the gas we have, there is gas involved with this project and we have coped up until now and we’re also assured by the Ghana Gas Corporation that it will be ready by third quarter. So we wouldn’t make a forecast like that if we weren’t comfortable that we could make it, we would misleading our shareholders if we did so”, he said.
Mr. Cazenove insisted that “We also do these things safely, that’s the first thing. We don’t flare for safety reasons and thirdly, and perhaps most importantly the Jubilee field for Tullow as a group is almost an important prize asset so we’re not going to do anything to damage it either. I don’t know if you realize, we’re not going to damage the reservoir, we’re not going to flare and we’re not going to make forecasts that we don’t believe we’re going to keep”.
But since Tullow is working with third quarter it is unclear yet it realizes the impending danger and whether they will be forced to flare the gas at some point with is technically against Ghana’s laws.
The $700 million gas infrastructure project will process gas from the Jubilee Field for power generation. The facility is expected to process about 150 million standard cubic of gas a day.
Source: Ventures Africa
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