Ghana’s National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC)’s former head Tsatsu Tsikata has advised the country to focus on gas production instead of crude oil.

While speaking at an event, he stated that it is up to Ghana to take advantage and accelerate gas development as the cost of materials, equipment as well as production in the industry is reducing as a result of the decline in oil prices.

According to him, gas is more beneficial to Ghana than oil in regard to the country’s development potential.

“The investment opportunities related to the development of natural gas tend to be of less interest to international oil companies who are more interested in moving the produced oil into the international market. As such, gas represents a significant area of opportunity for the country to take advantage of, especially at this period where the international oil companies are cutting down on budget and not venturing into new projects due to the unstable fuel prices,” he said.

Ghana initiated its premier natural gas infrastructure project at Atuabo, approximately 218 km from Accra in September 2015. The gas plant was built by Sinopec and funded by the China Development Bank with the capacity to process around 120 mcf of gas/d from the Jubilee field. Processed Gas is supplied to the Volta River Authority as fuel for its thermal plant, Natural Gas Asia reports.