Ghana: Energy Crisis Devastates Mining Sector

THE PRESIDENT of the Ghana Chamber of Mines, Mr. Jurgen Eijgendaal has bemoaned the effect of the nation’s energy crisis on the mining industry, describing it as very devastating.

According to him, mining is an energy intensive economic activity and as such obtaining full energy requirements at competitive rates was vital for the containment of the sector’s overall production costs.


He said mining companies are compelled to run standby generators for prolonged periods to cover the shortfall from the national grid, saying, “With the high price of diesel, some mining companies spent an average of about $2 million per month to generate additional power.”

He stated that those who did not have adequate self-generating capacity had to resort to batch processing to meet the 25% cut in power consumption as required by government.

Ghanaian Chronicle