The Volta River Authority (VRA) says it cannot fully utilize the 120 million standard cubic feet gas produced by the Ghana National Gas Company because some of its plants have shut down for maintenance.

According to the company, the said plants would be ready by March, this year.

Samuel Fletcher, Head of Corporate Communications of VRA, in a statement, said the first TICO Unit has recently been returned to service after a long period.

“We expect the process of conversion to gas to be completed within the next two weeks to increase gas consumption to about 80 million standard cubic feet.”

He said the second TICO Unit has been taken out of service for scheduled maintenance and would be available in March saying, “accordingly, the full 120 million standard cubic feet can be used from March 2015.

Mr. Fletcher said the units at VRA’s T1 and T3 plants have been running on gas supply from Ghana Gas Company since November 2014.

“Even though VRA is responsible for supplying TICO with fuel, we have no control over its operations. TICO has not been able to complete the commissioning of its plants to gas due to the erratic and inadequate supply of gas from Nigeria.

“TICO is therefore unable to immediately start operating on gas as the units require some work before the fuel switch, he said.

Mr. Fletcher said TICO Units have run solely on crude oil since completion in 2000 and, therefore, need some to run successfully on gas.

Ghana Gas last week announced that it is waiting for the Volta River Authority (VRA) to complete requisite works at its Aboadze Thermal Plant Complex to enable it increase the available generating capacity.

Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, Board Chairman of Ghana Gas, who made this known in a statement released recently, said once the VRA completes expansion works at its Aboadze Thermal Plant Complex “it will be possible for us to increase our off-take of raw gas from the Jubilee Field’s FPSO Kwame Nkrumah to supply VRA lean gas at the optimal 120 million standard cubic feet per day (120MMSCFD).”