‘Don’t blame WAGP/WAPCo for ‘dumsor’

General Manager of West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP), Madam Harriet Wereko Brobbey, has stated that the West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo), operator of the gas pipeline that transports gas from Nigeria to Ghana, has no hand in the country’s current power challenges.

She explained that her outfit is only responsible for the transportation of gas to the country and not to negotiate sales or purchasing agreement for the two countries.

She consequently discounted media reports that the WAGP could not give enough gas to the Volta River Authority (VRA) to generate the needed capacity of power, stressing that the report was fallacious and misleading.

Madam Brobbey said this in a media interaction forum in Takoradi in the Western region recently.

She further debunked the notion that the operations of the Ghana Gas could affect the revenue of WAGP.

However, she said it has rather created more business opportunities for them because it has the capacity to transport more volumes of gas in quantity.

Madam Brobbey mentioned third party activities that pose threats to her outfit as uncontrolled shipping, sand winning, indiscriminate anchorage, bottom trawling, unauthorised shipping methods, improper disposal of abandoned ships/shipwrecks and offshore construction.

In spite of all these, she stressed that the WAGP was embarking on public sensitisation exercise on the need to protect the pipelines, engage with the ECOWAS Commission to ensure maritime security as well as collaborate with the Navy in its operating countries to mitigate damages of the pipelines.

Commercial and Business Development Analyst of WAGP, Mr. Tesa Ayernor, hinted that the company is expanding the Tema Regulating and Marketing Station to 239 MMscfd to augment what the VRA is taking now in Tema to meet its current demands.

He added that the firm capacity installed at Tema is 70MMscfd-120 MMscfd.

He contended that though there had been response to changing market conditions and inconsistencies in contractual levels of gas supply, the WAPCo still remains a strategic asset as it has the existing infrastructure already in place, available extra capacity, experience in the industry and large shareholder base.