Current ‘dumsor’ is temporary; challenges being fixed – Load Mg’t. Committee

The Load Management Committee says the current interruptions in electricity supply in parts of the country are temporary.

It attributed the situation to the mandatory maintenance work on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah and inadequate natural gas supply from Nigeria, which has caused a generation deficit of about 1000 megawatts of electricity.

“We want to assure all power consumers that the current interruptions are temporary,” the Committee said in a statement issued Friday evening.http://ghanapoliticsonline.com

It explained that natural gas supply from Nigeria has remained at around 10 per cent of the contract volume of 120 millions of cubic feet for more than a month now.

It said some electricity generation plants, which run on natural gas, are unable to generate, noting that has also been compounded by a technical hitch in the conversion of the Aboadze dual-fired TAPCO plant to run on crude oil.

The Committee has urged all to bear with them while engineers work to resolve the challenges to restore full supply of electricity.

“Engineers from the utility companies will continue to work around the clock to keep the disruptions to the barest minimum and restore full supply to customers as soon as gas delivery resumes,” it assures

The floating oil vessel, FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, operated by Tullow Ghana, was shut down on March 20 to allow for a two-week mandatory inspection and maintenance.

The shutdown curtailed gas flow from the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant to the Aboadze Thermal enclave in Takoradi in the Western Region; something that affected in power generation in the country.

Although the two weeks expired on April 3, a statement issued on April 4 and signed by the Chief Executive of GRIDCo, Ing. William Amuna, said information from the operators of the vessel said the FPSO would be back online on Saturday, April 9.

No reasons were given as to why the maintenance duration has been extended by a week, except to say, “any inconvenience caused is deeply regretted”.

However, it has emerged the maintenance work would over in the last week of April.

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