GNPC ACQUIRES LAND FOR GAS PROCESSING PLANT (BACK PAGE, MARCH 11, 2010)

THE Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) has acquired a large tract of land near Bonyere and Kabla Suazo in the Western Region for the construction of a gas processing plant.
The plant will cost between US$800 million and US$1 billion and it will be constructed in phases.
The company has already ordered pipes for the project and the laying of the pipes to bring gas from the Jubilee Field to the shore for processing to begin in June, this year.
The Lead Geophysicist of the GNPC, Mr Benjamin Kwame Asante, announced this at the Western Regional forum on petroleum resource management in Takoradi.
About 200 people, including chiefs, metropolitan, municipal and district chief executives, fishermen, students, members of the various assemblies, Members of Parliament, representatives of the Association of Ghana Industries and the Ghana Chamber of Commerce in the region attended the forum.
Mr Asante said there was a strategic plan to bring associated gas from the Jubilee Field to the shore to process the transmitted wet gas into dry gas and liquids, including liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), condensate and propane.
He said natural gas would drive the economic development of the country, noting that the GNPC was playing a lead role in harnessing natural gas for domestic use and dry gas for power generation and fertiliser production primarily.
He said the GNPC was also sizing the gas infrastructure to enable the monetisation of the Jubilee Field gas and other indigenous natural gas reserves in its vicinity.
Mr Asante said the GNPC was collaborating with the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and other institutions on how to develop human capacity for the oil industry.
The Advisor for the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Joe Amoako-Tuffour, explained that the forum was to educate Ghanaians to help minimise misinformation and misrepresentation, as well as share thoughts on how the oil revenue should be managed.
He said it was also to help arrive at a mid-point of interest of Ghanaians and establish a Revenue Management Law that was acceptable, ensure checks and balances and also to have sufficient safeguards for transparency and accountability.
The Deputy Western Regional Minister, Mrs Betty Busumtwi-Sam, said the discovery of oil in the country had heightened the anxiety of many in the area for job acquisition and the uses to which revenue accruing from it would be put.
She said the forum was, therefore, to engage the citizenry to brainstorm on how the oil revenue should be managed.
The Paramount Chief of the Nsein Traditional Area, Awulae Agyefi Kwame, advised that all attention should not be focused on the discovery of oil alone, to the neglect of the modernisation and improvement of agriculture in the region.
The Paramount Chief of the Western Nzema Traditional Area, Awulae Annor Adjaye, suggested that a percentage of the oil revenue should be set aside for the management of any disaster which might occur at sea, particularly oil spillage.