Ghana to spend $775m on natural gas plant

Ghana intends to spend $775 million on a plant to process natural gas from the Jubilee oil and gas field which was discovered last year, the President’s press secretary, Andrew Awuni has said.

The plant, to be built at Atuabo in the Western region, will have a capacity of 150 million cubic feet (4.3 million cubic meters).

In a statement published Thursday December 18, 2008 on the Ghana government’s web site, Mr. Awuni said the plant will include facilities to process ethanol, methanol, propane, fertilizer and granules for plastics.

Ghana the world’s second-largest cocoa producer becomes an oil exporter in 2010 following discovery of oil in the country by Tullow Oil Plc. Tullow, a U.K. exploration company with the most licenses in Africa found 1.8 billion barrels of oil at the Jubilee field.

Plans for the natural gas facility are still tentative, including the source of funding, Maxwell Apiagyei Gyamfi, director of petroleum at the Ministry of Energy, said in an interview with Emily Bowers of Bloomberg Friday December 19, 2008.

“We are sourcing for funds and we are finalizing the touches on the conceptual framework,” he said. The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation is currently working on funding, Mr. Gyamfi said.

He told the news organization that the other facilities, including the methanol and fertilizer processors, will be funded by private companies who want to make investments in the fledgling industry. No construction date has been set, he added.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi