VRA owes Ghana Gas US$735 million over gas supplied to feed thermal plant

The Volta River Authority (VRA) owes Ghana gas US$735 million accruing from gas supplied the authority to power its thermal plant.

Despite the heavy debt, management of Ghana Gas do not intend halting supply to VRA as the gas supplier does about 90 percent of business with the authority.

Head of Finance at Ghana Gas, Emmanuel Essel says from April last year, an arrangement was arrived at where VRA paid US$3 million monthly for the gas supplied till October when the payments ceased while it had received US$20 million.

The Ministry of Finance also did a US$230 million balance sheet restructuring of the US$900 million debt bringing it down to US$735 million with an eye also on the ESLA bond.

In 2017, the ESLA bond Plc, set out to raise GHc6 billion for the first tranche of the GHc10 billion debt. The managers of the transaction eventually raised some GHc4.7 billion. ESLA Plc successfully closed its books for the issue of the seven-year bond on Friday, October 27, 2018, and accepted GHc2.42 billion of the seven-year bonds at a final yield of 19%.

Total bids tendered for both auctions amounted to GHc5.32 billion; GHc4.70 billion was accepted under the GHc10 billion ESLA Bond programme.

Communications Director of Ghana Gas Company, Ernest Owusu Bempah congratulated staff and management for being professional in the execution of their duties submitting it was indigenous engineers who did maintenance works on the installation at Sanzule where ENI attached their pipe. He said the state saved US$70 million in 2017 by utilizing the homegrown personnel. The ENI Onshore Receiving Facility (OCTP- TEN) project is at Sanzule in the Ellembelle constituency in the Western Region.

Ghana Gas Company is the State Agency that has the mandate to operate infrastructure required for the gathering, processing, transporting and marketing of natural gas resources in Ghana while the Volta River Authority meanwhile is the main generator and supplier of electricity in Ghana.