China has come up for high praises for supporting Ghana's efforts at monetizing its domestic natural gas resources from the Jubilee Oil Fields.

Ghana celebrated its first natural gas processing facility at Atuabo, some 218 km west of the capital, Accra, under the Western Gas Infrastructure Development Project.

The Atuabo gas provides the infrastructure for accessing Ghana's domestic natural gas resources and would resume Ghana's role as a preferred exporter of power in the West African sub-region.

Natural gas, with its cleaner burning characteristics, lower cost and lower emissions, is the preferred fuel for power generation.

The China Development Bank-funded project has the capacity to process about 120 million cubic feet of gas from the Jubilee Oil Field daily and has since been processing and supplying gas to the Volta River Authority to run thermal plants to generate electricity.

Fully aware of the importance of energy sufficiency to the transformation of the national economy, the business module of Ghana Gas is to mitigate or eliminate the current energy deficit by contributing 500 megawatts (MW) to the national energy mix.

Also, the plant is positioned to process more than 180,000 tons of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for domestic use, representing about 70 percent of the national requirement of 240,000 tons.

It will also help deliver 46,000 tons of condensate and about 15,000 tons of isopethain which will help reduce pressure on the national currency by reducing the import of these products now available through Ghana Gas.