Gas powered commercial vehicles to pay appropriate prices

Gas fuelled commercial vehicles might soon have to pay appropriate prices for the commodity.

The Deputy Minister for Energy, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, said this at the Volta Region “Road show on Local Content and Participation Policy on Oil and Gas operations in Ghana.”

Participants had expressed concern at the rate at which taxis were competing with domestic users for gas and the possibility of large scale smuggling of gas to nearby countries when Ghana starts producing gas in commercial quantities this year.

Mr Buah said a team had been constituted to study the situation with a view to recommending an appropriate price at which to sell gas to taxi drivers who are running their cabs on gas.

He said Ghana would produce 120,000 mmscfd of gas when the first phase of crude oil production begins at the Jubilee field in the last quarter of this year.

This would be doubled in the second phase in 2013.

Mr Buah said pipelines were being constructed to convey the gas to the proposed plant at Bonyere in the Western Region for the production of ethanol, propane and fertilizer.

“Gas would also be piped to Aboadze to generate electricity for the country,” Mr Buah said.

Source: GNA