A Deputy Minister for Energy Mohammed Amin Adam has assured Ghanaians that, the shutdown of the Floating, Production, Storage and Offloading (FPSO) Kwame Nkrumah in May this year will not affect power generation and distribution.

According to him, enough plans have been put in place to ensure that, Ghana does not go back into the era of severe power fluctuation and rationing which was popularly called dumsor.

Mr. Adams who spoke to the media after a tour of the Jubilee fields said, “the shutdown is to allow maintenance works to be carried out, I want to assure Ghanaians that there is no cause for alarm; previous shutdown had effect because even though gas was available from TEN, Ghana Gas was going through maintenance and that compelled the Volta River Authourity to use other means which included buying more crude oil to be able to address the power short fall at that time.”

“This time around, we will not have that problem because Ghana Gas is operating and therefore TEN, is going to give us 60million standard cubic feet daily” he added.

The Minister went on the tour with other stakeholders in the industry namely; VRA, GRIDCo, GNPC, Ghana Gas, Petroleum Commission as well as Tullow on how this resource will be managed in a way which will not cause any effect.

Also, he said, the Energy Ministry was working hard to ensure that there is going to be seamless shift from the shutdown.

We have confidence in Tullow that they will work harder until we have permanent solution somewhere next year, regarding the problem as the government, will not entertain too many shutdowns because it has so much effect on the citizens.

Meanwhile, even though the coming on stream of gas from Sankofa come on stream will augment to the power production side, the shutdown of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah will still have an effect in terms of revenues which can be used to undertake development activities”

The minister was impressed about the quality of working being done by Ghanaians on the FPSO; it demonstrates how Tullow Ghana has come, as far as acceleration of local content is concerned.

Beachfmonline.com|Ghana