Ghanaian engineers save Ghana Gas $20m annually

The Ghana National Gas Company says it saves the national purse $20 million annually ever since Ghanaian engineers took over the operations of the company at the gas processing plant at Atuabo in the Western Region.

The company said the saved amount would have been used for the payment of salaries and other benefits of foreign engineers if Ghanaian engineers had not taken over.

The Ghana National Gas Company’s processing plant at Atuabo started commercial production in the first quarter of 2015 under the management of Chinese partners, SINOPEC. It had an initial workforce of 110 engineers which has been reduced to 52.

With the Ghanaian engineers fully mentored to man the facility, a management decision in the first quarter of last year saw the plant fully taken over by Ghanaians.

The Ghanaian engineers have since been in charge of various routine, planned and other forms of maintenance and optimization at the gas processing plant.

Director of Operations, Robert Lartey, said the company is doing better under Ghanaian engineers.

“We have not had any disaster and we don’t intend having one but rather we have been able to even improve on what we have been doing all this while with Ghana Gas alone coming on stream running this facility by also Ghanaians”

In the first quarter of the year, Tullow Ghana shutdown the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah for maintenance.

Ghana Gas used the period to embark on major optimization and tie-in works to improve efficiency.

All the work was done by Ghanaian engineers and the fortunes of the company as described by Robert Lartey, are promising.

“The facility remains so resilient, efficient and reliable and no doubt of late you can all feel the positive impact at your homes where no more ‘dumsor dumsor’,” he said.