The West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAGPCO) has revealed that the government of Ghana has an outstanding debt of about $100 million to pay to N-Gas, a Nigerian company.
In times past, the debt Ghana owed N-Gas resulted in a cut in supply of gas, which affected power generation.
The General Manager, Corporate Affairs of WAGPCO, Harriet Wereko Brobbey, said that the current government had instituted an arrangement for paying the debt, which has largely been followed.
According to Brobbey, “There is an arrangement in place now which is that the debt will be paid in tranches and we are happy… We know that this arrangement is actually for the money to be paid to N-Gas.
“There was a promise to pay, which was arrived at by this government. There is an arrangement in place for the debt to be paid in tranches. We are happy that the payment of the first tranche has been largely made. We are expecting the remainder to be paid within the next week. The second tranche is around a $100 million, and we are expecting that it will be paid”.
N-Gas has an off-take agreement with Ghana to supply 120 million standard cubic feet of gas per day to the VRA, but supply to the country has fallen short of the contractual volume in recent years.
The pipeline, which is operated by the West Africa Pipeline Company Limited, was built to supply natural gas from Nigeria to customers in Benin, Togo, and Ghana.
N-Gas Limited is a company owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Chevron and Shell, buys gas from oil companies in Nigeria and transports to Ghana through the $1 billion WAGP.
