Nigeria may curtail Ghana natural gas supply over debts

By BusinessNews Staff on October 14, 2015

Nigeria may curb the supply of natural gas to Ghana because the country hasn’t paid more than a year of bills for the fuel, the West African Gas Pipeline Corporation said.
Ghana stopped paying for the fuel from Africa’s largest economy in August of 2014, Harriet Wereko-Brobby, spokeswoman for the pipeline company, told Bloomberg.
The Nigerian Gas Company sent a letter to Ghana’s largest power producer, the Volta River Authority, announcing the possible cut in supply, she said.
“It’s always possible to have the curtailment at any moment,” she said.

Ghana and Nigeria lowered their economic growth forecasts this year because of a drop in oil prices that reduced revenue and made it harder to meet budget deficit targets. Ghana has been struggling to meet power demand because of low water levels at a its largest hydroelectric dam and a lack of natural gas to power thermal plants. Nigeria is the continent’s largest producer of oil and has sub-Saharan Africa’s largest deposit of natural gas.
Ghana received as much as 90 million standard cubic feet of gas per day from Nigeria in the past month, Wereko-Brobby said.