400,000 barrels of crude oil arrives; ‘dumsor’ likely to end – Jinapo

Government has taken delivery of 400,000 barrels of light crude oil to power the country’s thermal plants and to ease the crippling power crisis in the country.

This was confirmed by the Deputy Power Minister John Jinapor in an interview on Joy FM, Friday.

According to him, the crude oil when treated will add about 450 megawatts of power to the installed capacity.

It will however take at least seven days for the crude oil to be treated and pumped into three of the thermal plants at Aboadze.

The country has been experiencing a resurging power crisis which has affected many businesses across the country.

There have been calls for the Electricity Company of Ghana to release a load shedding schedule to help business men plan but those calls have been watered down by president John Mahama who insists the current situation, while regrettable, is not akin to the popular power crisis.

The Deputy Power Minister in an interview with Kojo Yankson explained the reason for the recent outages.

“The major challenge that is been confronting us for days now is being the lack of fuel within the Aboadze thermal enclave. This is because fuel we had established LC for and was expecting on the 23d, the suppliers couldn’t deliver the fuel arising from militant attacks in Nigeria.

“Five terminals were blown in Nigeria,” he explained, adding, “It delayed the fuel. Eventually the vessel took 400,000 barrels of fuel in Nigeria and even on the way had to take a detour.

“Normally it takes about one day for the vessel to navigate to Ghana but this time had to take about three days because it had to take a detour in Sao Tome,” he stated.

“We have fuel now, we are going through the treatment,” he said, describing the strides made as a “big shot in the arm.”

The Deputy Minister said the country is currently shedding 200 megawatts of power but the crude oil will now supply 450 megawatts which means “all things being equal, there will be no dumsor” he promised.

He also denied assertions that Ameri plant is lying idle whilst the country pays huge monies for