West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) project
Posted on November 11, 2009 – 1:36 pm | by oilandgaspress.com
PIPELINE vandals may have stalled the West African Gas Pipeline (WAGP) project, which was conceived to supply natural gas from Nigeria to Togo, Benin and Ghana, among other countries in the West African sub-region.
The project has not been meeting up with the supply obligation to these countries, no thanks to pipeline vandalism.
Following this development, which occurred since May, this year, the West African Pipeline Company (WAPCo), the project executor, has not been able to receive gas supply from the Escravos gas pipeline, owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Chevron Nigeria Limited Joint Venture for the project, which will be inaugurated in the first quarter of next year.
The Managing Director of WAPCo, Mr. Jack Derickson, who disclosed this yesterday at the company’s general stakeholders forum, equally stated that following the inflationary trend, which is caused by the delay in the implementation of the project, and other challenges that the company had faced, the cost had increased to about $1 billion from the initial estimate of $600 million, representing 70 per cent.
Derickson said: “The offshore pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana has been completed and WAPCo in April supplied gas to the Volta River Authority (VRA) station at Takoradi, under an interim sales arrangement.
“Since May 2009, however, WAPCo has not received gas due to vandalism to gas supply pipelines in the Niger Delta region, several hundred kilometres upstream of the WAGP connection to the system.”
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