Ghana Should Focus on Gas Production

Ghana should focus on gas production instead of oil production, former head of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Tsatsu Tsikata said.

“With the cost of materials, equipment, and production in the industry coming down due to the reduction of oil prices, it is up to us to take advantage and accelerate our gas development,” he said at an event, reported Graphic Online, a news portal.

He said gas had more benefits than oil with regard to their development potential.

“The investments opportunities related to the development of natural gas tend to be of less interest to international oil companies who are more interested in moving the produced oil into the international market. As such, gas represents a significant area of opportunity for the country to take advantage of, especially at this period where the international oil companies are cutting down on budget and not venturing into new projects due to the unstable fuel prices,” he said.

In September, Ghana officially inaugurated its first China funded natural gas infrastructure project at Atuabo, about 218 km from Accra. 

The gas processing plant has been funded by China Development Bank and built by Sinopec. It has the capacity to process about 120 million cubic feet of gas from the Jubilee field daily. The gas is being supplied to the Volta River Authority to run thermal plants to generate electricity.