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Lead operator of Ghana’s jubilee oil field, Tullow Oil has admitted that fixing the damaged turret bearing of the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) Kwame Nkrumah could take up to eight months to complete.

This will have dire implications for the country’s power generation, revenues from oil,sufficiency in Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and planned developmental projects and programmes.

It’s been estimated that if FPSO Nkrumah is not running, the VRA would need about $30 million a month to buy fuel to run the Cenit, T1, Tapco and Tico plants, which willbe a major drain on an ailing economy.

Tullow is now producing 33,000 barrels of oil per day as against the 100,000 it was producing before the planned shutdown.

“If there is no gas from the FPSO, the country would have to buy light crude oil for TAPCO and Takoradi International Company (TICO); since crude is more expensive than gas, the cost of production of power would go up,” Dr Ishmael Ackah, Head of Policy Unit at the Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), explains.

According to Tullow, it is considering three options infixing the broken turret bearing before resuming full operations.

“We are yet to meet with the government of Ghana, our partners and other key stakeholders to decide on which option to select; “it could be one of three options; it could be an off-station solution, a spread moor solution and another one,” General Manager for Tullow Ghana, Mr Charles Darku said at the company’s investor forum held recently in Accra.

The company shut down operations in March this year after it noticed a broken turret bearing on the vessel following planned routine maintenance works.

Minister for Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buahhad admitted that the damage to the bearing was extensive, saying that government was aware of the exigency of the situation not only in terms of revenue but also power and would work closely with the partners to resolve the problem.

According to him, a technical investigation of the condition of the turret bearing on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah had confirmed that the bearing had been damaged and was no longer able to rotate as originally designed

Energy experts were unhappy over what they described as lack of full disclosure on exactly what had happened to the FPSO and its ramifications.

“We are unable to tell the cost of this short-term remedial measure and, indeed, the authorities have not disclosed all the details about the hitch on the FPSO and the fact that it could take another eight weeks,” protested Energy Consultant, Dr Steve Manteaw.

Contrary to earlier media reports that the turret bearing had been fixed and production had resumed, Mr Charles Darku said “we haven’t fixed it yet; what we’ve done is we have taken measures to stabilize the situation so we can continue to operate.”

Tullow hopes a decision will be taken by the middle of this year to commence repair works on the faulty gadget.

The oil gianthas defended its decision to allow more time for the repair works, explaining that the priority for its offshore operations in Ghana is to ensure safety of the operations and safeguard the environment.

“We will not put the team here under pressure to hurry and re-start production at the expense of their safety and that of the environment,” Tullow maintains.

But the cost implications of the prolonged repair of the vessel on Ghana are dire, energy experts have warned.

This is in spite of the announcement by Tullow that the Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) project is 90 percent complete and is on course to begin oil production in the third quarter of this year.

Oil experts maintain that revenues from the TEN project cannot offset the losses from the challenges with the FPSO since the 2016 budget has already captured expected revenues.

As revenues from the sale of oil from the Jubilee field are set to fall due to the reduced production levels, it is obvious that figures captured in the budget will have to be revised downwards which will affect the execution of planned programmes and projects outlined for this year.

Ghana could be plunged into darkness again as we have a major production shortfall.

According to Dr Ackah, Ghana is set to lose about 230MW from the Africa and Middle East Resources Investment (AMERI)plant which burns on natural gas from the Atuabo which also gets its supply from the FPSO.

Since the AMERI plant is not designed as a dual fuel plant, it has to be shut down when the FPSO is down.

Dr Ackah explainsthat the irregular and prolonged breakdowns will have negative consequences for Ghana’s power sector as the Aboadze thermal plant also depends on gas from the Atuabo gas processing plant.

According to him, various challenges had in the past hindered the delivery of a potential 120 million standard cubic feet of gas a day from the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah to the processing plant at Atuabo.

Since gas production commenced, Tullow Ghana has undertaken several unplanned shutdowns of the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah as a result of a faulty compressor.