Gas industry has lots of prospects for four participating countries - WAPCo

The General Manager in charge of Corporate Affairs for the West Africa Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCo), Dr. Isaac Adjei Doku, says the gas industry has lots of prospects for the four participating countries with investment in infrastructure across the Sub-region.

He revealed that discussions were currently underway on Nigeria- Morocco gas pipeline aside other infrastructural and technological investment in the sector”.

The General Manager told Journalists during a media interaction to update Journalists on the operations for onward informed public education.

He said another key project of ECOWAS was to make sure that gas was consistently available to its members with an extension to some landlocked countries.

He said currently, Ghana was exporting to Burkina Faso, a landlocked country, and hoped that Niger, Mali, also landlocked countries would be connected with gas.

“We also envision some power stations could be built in those countries for power generation…These are long term goals, but, currently, unless our shareholders of course, express interest. The key thing is to consolidate what we are doing between Nigeria, Benin, Togo and Ghana”, Dr. Doku said.

The General Manager said, Mozambique had also got some huge gas reserves and believed that WAPCo’s success story in the West Africa sub- region would be told.

The WAPCo, he said, over the years, had acquired the knowledge and expertise which would be harmonized and leveraged for the long-term goals of ECOWAS.

The WAPCo, Dr Doku said, was an international company transporting natural gas in Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Ghana and   operated the West African gas pipeline system, linked with the ECOWAS Lagos pipeline in Nigeria.

In 2019, however, pipelines were extended with interconnections to Ghana Gas Pipeline system, allowing gas from Atuabo, in Western Ghana, to be supplied into the sub regional systems.

He said “And so we had one of the success stories of private public partnership– and the pipeline was built all the way from Nigeria, to Ghana, majority of it is undersea.

Dr. Doku mentioned that the reverse flow with the Ghana Gas lines had ensured some reliability to the gas within the pipeline network.

The General Manager paid tribute to the cordial relations between the company and fisherfolk who had also kept faith with the company over the years, “our fishers are adhering to our no anchorage policy, and we are impressed”.