Atuabo plant supplies domestic market with gas

The Ghana Gas Plant at Atuabo  has started supplying the Ghanaian domestic market with Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).

Currently, there is a long queue of LPG tankers at the Quantum Terminal loading gantry at Anorchie, near Atuabo, waiting to load gas for the local market.

The supplies commenced about two weeks ago after a series of tests at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) proved that the LPG was within the acceptable industry benchmark for domestic use.

So far, more than 2,000 cubic metres of LPG, an equivalent of 40 truckloads, have been released onto the Ghanaian market for domestic consumers.

The current national demand for LPG is about 240,000 tonnes annually and Atuabo is set to produce about 184,000 tonnes, representing 75 per cent of annual demand at optimum production level.

Private gantry ready

Officials of the operators of the independent loading gantry, Quantum Terminal, told the Daily Graphic  that with an expected daily production of 60 million standard cubic feet of gas per day  at the Atuabo plant, they expect to load between 12 and 15 trucks of LPG per day to the domestic market.  

5,000m3

The Director of Technical Operations at Ghana Gas, Dr Ben Asante, said the plant had so far produced LPG in excess of 5,000 cubic metres, out of which about 3,700m3, had been delivered onto the domestic market.

He confirmed that a series of tests, the last of which was conducted on November 28, 2014 by the Quality Control Unit of TOR, showed that the Atuabo LPG was of the requisite quality.

“The vapour pressure specification was 5.6 barg, which is well below the maximum 10.0 barg stipulated by the Ghana Standards Authority,” he said.

That aside, he said the company had also begun the trucking of condensates, another by-product of the gas,  to another company for further processing.  

At present, more than  400 tons of condensates had been lifted for power generation by the private power generation company.

Aboadze has been generating electricity since November 24, 2014 solely on lean gas from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant. As of last night, it was generating about 175 megawatts of electricity onto the national grid and is set to ramp up generation to about 340 megawatts by the end of this month.

Zero Nigerian gas at Aboadze

Due to the high supply pressure of the Atuabo gas, gas delivery from Nigeria has been limited to  the Tema power enclave.

Atuabo gas is also said to have better quality because it has little or no amount of acid gases such as carbon dioxide and hydrogen sulphide. Experts say it has less than two per cent carbon dioxide and absolutely no hydrogen sulfide, with a delivery pressure almost twice that of WAGP.

As a result of the quality, lean gas from Atuabo is exempted from being taken through all the filtration systems at the Aboadze Thermal Plant before being injected into the turbines.