Load Shedding To Run Till December 25

The load shedding exercise is not likely to end any time soon because the West African Gas Pipeline Company has said it is still in the process of repairing the damaged pipelines, therefore the exercise may run into December. The ECG last month commenced a load shedding exercise after WAPCO�s pipeline which serves Ghana and Togo got damaged. The current power outages been experienced across the country especially in Accra have been prompted by the shutdown of the Sunon Asogli Power plant after the West African Gas Pipeline which supplies it with its fuel was damaged implying that the amount of electricity generated now is not enough to go round. The latest announcement is expected to seriously affect business in the manufacturing sector as well. Speaking to Citi Business News after a news conference on Friday, the Managing Director of the West Africa Gas Pipeline, Charles Adeniji mentioned that the pipeline will be re-commissioned by the end of the year. He said: �We certainly will re-commission it before the end of the year. We have 90 percent chance that we would be back into business before the end of the year and we have 50 percent chance that we will be back by the end of November and we have about 10 percent chance that we will be back by the end of October.� �We have completed the first stage of repairs. With the repairs, we don�t enforce stages. The first stage involves knowing what has happened, where it has happened, to what extent it has happened and then of course knowing that it also involves the removal of the damaged pipe joints. There were six pipe joints that have been removed and the sub-sea area will now be prepared to receive replacement pipespol which is n going and when it is finished, we will install it and after we will need to de-water and dry it before we start introducing gas,� Mr. Adeniji explained. He also told Citi Business News, a Sub regional security forum will soon be constituted to prevent such occurrences in future saying, �the mandate will be to examine the current situation, what has happened to us and set an objective and come up with strategies to achieve that objective to make sure that these sort of things do not happen again.� According to Mr. Adeniji, the incident has slowed us down, �we have not been doing transportation business because the pipeline is broken. Then again, we also have the opportunity to see which part of our operations that needs improvement. It is very clear that we work with all stakeholders in the sub region to see what we can now put in place to make sure what happened do not happen again.�