Delays at Jubilee oil field may lead to gas flaring

An Energy Analyst, Muhammed Amin Adam has told Citi Business News that the current delays in the completion of the gas infrastructure project could forde Jubilee oil field to resort to the harmful practice of gas flaring.

This is as a result of the current operational challenges government is having with the lead contractor on the SINOPEC project.

China’s SINOPEC has threatened to abandon the project following serious financial challenges government is confronted with in paying SINOPEC for pre-financing the project.

The Ghana Gas Company has already hinted the current bottleneck could potentially affect the completion of the project.

This will automatically have implications for the Jubilee Field which analysts have warned can no longer hold gas after June this year.

Mr. Adam who is also the Executive Director of the Africa Centre for Energy Policy explained that “in this case the law also allows that you can flare for operational reasons and you can flare when you are compelled to. So in this circumstance when we are not ready with our gas infrastructure they are compelled to flare, in that case we will have no course to make any case against them”.

He however raised concerns about the environmental implications of the process if it happens saying, “when you flare you know the environmental implications of flaring and it’s for this reason Ghana has decided to uphold high levels of environmental standards and therefore if even before we mature into production we are already going to face high environmental risks, then we will not be starting well as a new oil producing country”.

The $700 million Gas infrastructure project is being funded from the $3 billion loan from the China Development Bank (CDB) which is currently delaying.