Though Ghana owes $160m, we have a continuous supply understanding, says WAPCo
The Managing Director of West Africa Gas Pipeline company (WAPCo), Mr. Walter Perez has disclosed that even though Ghana government is currently owing about $160m being value of gas supplied so far to its Volta River Authority, from Nigeria through our pipeline, there is a standing understanding.
He said “We are delivering gas now because we have put arrangement in place for Ghana to prepay for the deliveries that they receive, and so that is working. We have every expectation that this will continue to work.”
Business Hilights recalls that N-Gas Limited, a company owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Chevron and Shell, buys gas from oil companies in Nigeria and transport it to Ghana through the $1bn WAGP.
The pipeline, which is operated by the West Africa Pipeline Company Limited, was built to supply natural gas from Nigeria to customers in Benin, Togo and Ghana.
N-Gas has an off-take agreement with Ghana to supply 120 million standard cubic feet of gas per day to the VRA. But supply to the country had fallen short of the contractual volume in recent years.
The General Manager, Corporate Affairs, WAPCo Limited, Harriet Wereko-Brobby while explaining the scenario, averred that “There is a current arrangement between the gas suppliers and the off-taker that the volume will be 60mmBtu”.
According to her, “The off-taker (VRA) had established a payment security arrangement for gas consumed to halt “debt accumulation going forward.”
“There is still an outstanding debt of around $160m to be paid to the supplier, N-Gas, and it is expected that about $30m will be paid shortly,” Wereko-Brobby noted.
Only recently, a portal, GhanaWeb reported that the volume of gas supplied to Ghana from Nigeria for power production had reduced by about 50 per cent and noted that the situation had been attributed to the inability of Ghana to settle its long-standing debts as stipulated in the gas supply contract, and vandalism of gas pipelines in Nigeria.
