OREANDA-NEWS.  August 24, 2012. Ghana is to begin its National Gas Processing Project in the Western Region this month, with an initial production estimate of 150 million metric standard cubic feet of gas a day.

The production level is expected to increase to about 300 million metric standard cubic feet, Dr George Spia-Yankey, the Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Gas Company Limited, said on Wednesday in Takoradi, where the plant is located.

This is expected to boost domestic LPG requirements as well as natural gas liquids for petrochemical industries, including fertiliser production. Ghana also expects to derive numerous benefits such as availability of gas to its power thermal plant at Takoradi at a lower cost, creation of jobs and the establishment of petro-chemical industries.

The first phase will begin in couple of weeks, and is estimated at USD 750 million. Sinopec International Petroleum Corporation, China's leading Oil and Gas Company with an annual turnover of USD 288.9 billion and listed as the 5th company of the Global Fortune 500 Companies, will undertake the construction.

Sinopec is said to be a highly experienced company that has been involved in the execution of oil and gas projects worldwide. So far the Ghana Gas Company Limited has taken delivery of about 9,953 pieces of pipes imported from China.

The project is expected to be completed before the year ends. The first phase involves the laying of offshore and inshore pipes from the Jubilee Fields through Atuabo to the Takoradi Thermal Plant at Aboadze.

The West African country aims to have a functioning gas processing plant and infrastructure that would link the FPSO (floating production, Storage offloading) at the Jubilee Field, the oil production site, in the Western Region, to the gas processing plant.

The government's policy hinges on the gas component as the pivot on which a new growth pole to drive the economy further forward.

??Details of work include construction of a 150 MMSCFD Gas Processing Plant, a 36 kilometre shallow water offshore pipeline from the FPSO to the Plant, a 120 kilometre onshore pipeline from the gas processing plant to Aboadze, a 75 kilometre onshore pipeline from Esiama to Prestea, a jetty for the export of natural gas liquids and an operations and control office complex.

A French company, Technip, prepared the engineering design of the gas processing plant, while Intecsea/Worley Parson of Houston of USA, handled the engineering design of the offshore pipeline from the FPSO to the gas processing plant.

The entire project is valued at USD 235 million and is being funded largely under a USD 3 billion China Development Bank (CDB) loan which the country's parliament approved early this year.