Ghana is expected to receive its first LNG import cargo at a newly built import facility in Tema during the current quarter.
Answering questions during an International Gas Union webinar, Tema LNG Terminal Co director Kwaku Boakye-Adjei said the floating storage unit for the project should arrive at the end of this month.
He said the project is doing an “extended discharge” for the commissioning cargo and then the floating storage unit (FSU) will arrive to “fill in the gap”.
The FSU will operate alongside the 28,000-cbm, barge-based LNG floating regasification unit (FRU) newbuilding Torman, which was shipped to Ghana from China on a heavylift vessel.
TradeWinds understands the LNG Flora, which had been earmarked as the FSU for the Tema project, is no longer to be utilised for this business.
An 800-metre breakwater has been built to protect the units.
Core concept
Boakye-Adjei, speaking during a rainstorm from Kenya, said that a core part of the import project for Ghana is the potential to supply neighbouring West African markets such as those in Benin, Togo, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
He said these are all markets the company believes can benefit significantly from LNG but do not have the scale of demand to underpin on their own the infrastructure to deliver it.
Boakye-Adjei said the Tema LNG facility has been deliberately oversized and designed for break-bulking so it can be used to supply these markets.
In a first phase this will be done by small-scale deliveries and then solutions scaled up to meet demand growth.
“I think that is a key part of the model here in West Africa is about using infrastructure efficiently and effectively,” he said.
Several attempts have been made previously to build LNG import solutions for Ghana. But these have foundered.
Boakye-Adjei said Tema LNG had tried to bring together "something novel" so the anchor market might develop and grow just by having LNG and gas available.
He said this need for flexibility is the reason why the company opted for an FRU-FSU combination rather than an available floating storage and regasification unit.
The director said this involved more capital expenditure and risk but it allowed the company to shape the solution to meet the problem.
The Tema LNG project was privately funded with 18% of the finance coming from Africa.
Shell is the anchor LNG supplier for what is sub-Saharan Africa's first LNG import terminal.
The facility is designed to delivery around 220m standard cubic feet per day on a nominal basis, which is sufficient to cover 30% of Ghana’s energy demand.
This article has been updated since it was first posted to update details relating to the floating storage unit.
