Gas from the Jubilee oil fields will be flared for the two-week period that the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant will be shut down for routine maintenance, energy analyst Mr Kojo Poku has said.

The Gasop Oil CEO told Ekow Mensah-Shalders on Class91.3fm’s Executive Breakfast Show on Thursday that the flaring will be necessary because Ghana does not have a gas storage facility.

Mr Poku said natural gas can only be stored when it is liquefied – Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) – but Ghana, at the moment does not have any facility for such storage.

“We don’t have the facility to store gas in Ghana because it’s very expensive; you have to build a whole facility to compress the gas to become liquid and store it. We don’t have that. So, … what you realise is that when Atuabo is shut down for maintenance, the gas from the well has to be flared because if you keep it in the wells, there will be a blow-up because there’ll be pressure build-up in the wells and it will blow up the pressure valves which they have, so, they’ll have to flare the gas during the Atuabo maintenance,” he said.

“When Atuabo is working, the gas is sent straight to Atuabo plant, processed and sent straight to our generators. We don’t have any storage facility in Ghana at present for any of these facilities,” Mr Poku added.

The Atuabo Gas Processing Plant, which processes natural gas from the Jubilee oil fields for onward transmission to the various thermal plants in the Aboadze power enclave, will be shut down from Friday January 15, for routine maintenance. Ghana Gas served notice of the closure of Atuabo to all its stakeholders on January 3.

"The planned maintenance, the second since lean gas and associated liquids production begun at Atuabo, is expected to last approximately fourteen (14) calendar days.

"The plant has been in operation for more than 8,000 hours since last year.

"As previously communicated to the general public, this mandatory outage is required by original equipment manufacturers and vendors for maintenance of certain critical components in the gas processing plant on a periodic basis, as well to facilitate warranty assurance on the installed equipment and the validity of our operating insurance cover.

"Ghana Gas is in communication with the Volta River Authority (VRA), the primary downstream lean gas off-taker, and the other product off-takers, as well as the upstream gas supplier, Tullow Ghana Limited, to ensure a smooth implementation and completion of the planned maintenance works," the statement signed by Corporate Communications Manager, Alfred Ogbamey, said.

The Company said it will update its stakeholders on the progress of work.