The resumption of gas supply from the Atuabo gas plant after a two-week maintenance shutdown will not come off   due to a detection of new leakage in the plant

The management of the Ghana Gas Company, operators of the Atuabo gas facility, said the leaking gas was detected in the heating exchanger during the testing by engineers.

“A small leakage detected after the routine maintenance of the Gas Plant during the testing and commissioning prompted the engineers to work on the leakage before finally opening the plant for the supply of gas”, says the head of Corporate Communications at Ghana Gas, Mr Ernest Owusu Bempah, at a media briefing held at Atuabo in the Ellembele District of the Western Region last Thursday.

Explaining why the plant was still shut, after the completion of the routine maintenance, he said the leakage was detected after the routine maintenance of the plant and to forestall any eventuality the plant engineers decided to fix a valve at the leaked area before gas supply operation can be started.

The Ghanaian engineers who detected the fault, according to Mr Owusu-Bempah, were putting in all efforts to ensure that the heat-to-heat exchangers were dealt with once and for all operations to begin, adding all the stakeholders along the value chain have been notified about the situation.

It is recalled, that the Ghana National Gas Company announced a the two-week shutdown of the Atuabo Gas Processing Plant beginning from October 4,  to October 18, 2021, with the assurance that the shutdown would  not result in any power outages as  adequate backup plans including ENI’s Sanzule Onshore gas processing plant and the reverse flow system are enough to provide energy into the stream in the interim.

“We are all aware of the maintenance culture of the oil and gas industry. It is very important for us to do the maintenance for durability and also to maintain the gas facility protocols. It is also important that we do some expansions and replacement of some components in line with international standards that will enable the gas facility to run efficiently…. We have the Sanzule tie-in and the reverse flow that when Atuabo shuts down, we have other gas flow from here to the Takoradi Regulatory and Metering Station and other parts of the country for power generation.”

“We have the ENI-Sankofo Sanzule Onshore Gas Receiving facility still working. We also did the reverse flow from the Western enclave to the Eastern enclave which Asogli is receiving gas at the moment, so people should write off this misconception that when there is a shutdown at Atuabo plant then it means that there is going to be power outages”, he said.

“During the maintenance schedule, there shall be an installation of High Integrity Pressure Protection System (HIPPS) and maintenance works on the replacement of Small Bore Piping (SBP), Heat Exchanges (HEX) cleaning, replacement of damaged Product Cooler, replacement of defective valves and re-calibration of all our Safety-Critical Equipment including Pressure Safety Valves”, it said.