Nigeria to resume gas supply to Ghana, Others

Gas pipelines
| credits: sweetcrudereports.com

The West Africa Gas Pipeline Company will resume gas flow through its pipeline on April 30, 2013.

The company’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Mrs. Harriet Wereko-Brobby, said this at the Lagos Beach Compressor Station in Badagry on Friday.

“We are looking at April 30, 2013 for the pipeline to be back,” she said.

The pipeline was damaged in August 2012 and this affected the company’s operations.

WAGPCO is jointly owned by Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic.

Wereko-Bobby said the damaged gas pipeline had been undergoing intensive repairs, including tests for leakages.

She said naval personnel from the four countries had also been charged to protect the facility.

Wereko-Brobby said efforts were underway for WAGPCO to enter into an agreement with Togo’s Navy to carry out strict surveillance on the gas equipment to avoid damage.

She said, “We are currently engaging with the host communities to ensure that such a breach does not occur again.

“We have also gotten the countries to agree on a pipeline protection zones (one mile from the pipeline). We are going to enter an agreement with the Navy to pay special attention to WAGPCO.”

She added, “We already have agreement with the Nigerian Navy to help protect the pipeline from sand mining and we are hoping to extend the agreement with them so that they can help us protect the pipelines in the offshore areas.

“We already have an agreement with the Navy in Benin, but the agreements with the Navy in Togo and Ghana for the protection of the pipelines are underway.”

Speaking in the same vein, the Supervisor, Lagos Beach Compressor Station, WAGPO, Mr. Olugbenga Agboola, explained that water entered the pipeline when it was breached.

“The pipeline had been repaired but we are at a cleaning process to ensure that we don’t supply dirty gas to our customers,” he said.

Meanwhile, there were concerns over the flaring of gas at the station during the repairs of the damaged pipelines.

The Health/ Environment & Safety Specialist, Mr. Romeo Obaye, said the plant was designed in such a way that gas could be flared in an environmentally-friendly manner.

He said the main by-products of the combustion (water and carbon dioxide) did not constitute any environment threat.

“We obtained air emissions permit from the Federal Ministry of Environment in February 2012. We also obtained flare permit for initial facility commissioning from DPR and another flare permit from DPR for pipeline re-commissioning following pipeline breach in August 2012,” he said.