Off-shore pipelines between Ghana and Nigeria forming the West African Gas Pipeline Project (WAGP) have been completed, giving indications that gas could be flowing through to Ghana's Aboadze Thermal Plant by March next year, reported the Ghana News Agency Wednesday.

The offshore pipeline is from Takoradi where the plant is located, through Benin and Togo to Nigeria. The onshore pipeline has been constructed and is geared toward the first or second quarter of next year.

The report quoted a source at the Ministry of Energy as saying that a compressor had been fixed at the Nigeria end of the pipeline, and with a similar component scheduled for the Ghana end coming soon, "we could be powering electricity into the country soon since everything is being done to ensure that we have power flowing by the first or second quarter of next year."

The 600 million-U.S. dollar WAGP Project started some 12 years ago and is intended to provide cheaper, reliable energy supply from the WAGP to promote investment for strategic variety of industries.

A document on the project outlined that numerous primary sector as well as service sector jobs would be generated as a result of the project.

The WAGP is expected to generate 800 million dollars in new industries across the West Africa Sub-Region.

Industry players say the coming on stream of the WAGP would significantly ease the country's energy situation and breathe a new lease of life into the current energy difficulty facing the country while providing a sustainable energy pattern for industry. The Gas Pipeline Project aims at improving the competitiveness of the energy sectors in Ghana, Benin and Togo by promoting the use of cheaper and environmentally cleaner gas from Nigeria.

The sponsors estimate the new pipeline to cost about 590 million dollars while additional compression-related costs are estimated to be about l10 million dollars over 20 years.

Source: Xinhua