By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
It is emerging that Ghana’s gas pipelines transporting natural gas to various regions for energy generation are under serious threat from activities of illegal gold miners, commonly known as ‘Galamsey’.
At least, 50 communities where these pipelines pass in the Western and Ashanti regions have already been identified to pose the greatest risks to the strategic national energy infrastructure requiring urgent national attention and action.
The Vice President in charge of Operations at Genser Energy, Ing. Henry Abeiku Oppong, disclosed this to GBC in Kumasi on the fringes of a seminar.
“We’ve more than 50 communities we’ve identified as galamsey-prone areas where the activities normally interrupt or cut our communication cables. And we’ve identified the communities where we’ve intensified surveillance and monitoring systems… There’re a lot of areas in the Western region. Galamsey is very active in the Western region. Our pipelines, Western region to Ashanti region, these areas are where we’re battling assiduously to ensure the communities are well sensitized to understand that some of these activities are very harmful to the Operations of the pipelines and can become real threats to the communities”, he said.
The Vice President of Genser Energy said, even though the company has put the entire stretch of the gas pipelines under constant surveillance using various strategies, the seriousness of the threat requires the urgent consideration of the state security apparatus in protecting the natural gas infrastructure.
Ing. Abeiku Oppong disclosed that, within one year, upon completion of Gas Processing plants by both Genser Energy and Ghana Gas, with a combine capacity of about 350 million scarf per day, Ghana sould be self-sufficient in natural gas production to meet her daily peak electricity demand of 460 million scarf.
“Genser is going to finish our Processing plant in the 3rd quarter of this year, October, November the plant will be firing. GPP, with what I know, they’re also ready to build their Processing plant which I know will not exceed 12 months to give us enough capacity, in terms of processing and utilising the reserves that we’ve”, he disclosed.
Ghana currently supplements her production capacity of 380 million scarf per day with gas from the West Africa Gas Company.
The Seminar was one of the series of such fora being created by the College of Engineering of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST and selected key industry players in the engineering sector for the interaction among engineering students and professional engineers towards bridging the industry-academia gap while preparing the students for the job market upon completion of their programmes of study.
It is an initiative of The Brew Hammond Energy Centre with the latest edition being in partnership with Genser Energy, the company involved in constructing Ghana’s natural gas infrastructure including pipelines to evacuate the natural gas from offshore to various destinations in the country.
The event focused on ‘Fueling Ghana’s future engineering excellence in natural gas infrastructure development.”
Various speakers from Genser Energy took the participants through Ghana’s current status in gas infrastructure and the prospect for the entire energy generation as well as the internship and job opportunities available to engineering students, particularly females.
The Director of The Brew Hammond Energy Centre at the College of Engineering of the KNUST, Professor David Quansah, noted that the seminar was to also celebrate excellence in engineering particularly when former students from the Engineering College are playing a leading role in building Ghana’s gas infrastructure.
