The West African Gas Pipeline Company (WAPCO) has said that its $I billion gas pipelines project from Nigeria to Ghana will start full operation by the first quarter of next year.

The Managing Director of the company Jack Derickson said this at a stakeholders' forum yesterday in Lagos.

He said the project was initially estimated at $ 560 million but increased to $ 1billion due to gross inflation in project material and exchange rate. The project was conceived to supply natural gas from Nigeria to Togo, Benin and Ghana, among other countries in the sub region.

Derickson said that the offshore pipeline from Nigeria to Ghana has been completed and WAPCo in April supplied gas to the Volta River Authority (VRA) station at Takoradi, under an interim sales arrangement.

He said crisis in the Niger Delta crisis affected the projects and punctuated its ability to deliver gas. "Since May 2009,WAPCo has not received gas due to vandalism to gas supply pipelines in the Niger Delta region" he said.

According to him,the company's compressor station in Lagos, which would enable WAPCo transport higher volumes of gas from Nigeria to Ghana, Togo and Benin, was still under construction.

He said the company made effort to complete the work on other facilities that would enable WAPCo receive gas from offshore in Tema, Lome and Cotonou.

He said the remaining construction work is nearing completion at the Compressor Station in Nigeria and the Regulating and Metering stations in Tema, Lome, and Cotonou.

He said the system is expected to be commissioned at the end of the year.

He said: "Once this phase of the construction is completed and the facilities commissioned, WAPCO will have the compression capacity to deliver to the VRA and gas to power four 110 megawatt turbines as well as supply our customers in Benin and Togo.

"We have come this far because of the tremendous support we have received from the four governments."

Derickson said that about $2 million has been committed in providing suitable development in most host communities under the Communities Development Program (CDP) in health, education and sanitation.