Ghana Invites More Investors into Oil Sector
From NZ Week
Ghana wants investors to take advantage of the West African country’s conductive environment to help boost its nascent oil and gas industry, a senior official said Tuesday.
Ghanian Minister for Energy and Petroleum Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah made the call when he opened the 17th Offshore Conference on Oil and Gas Deepwater Exploration here.
He said his ministry and its agencies, Petroleum Commission and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), continued to welcome into Ghana International Oil Companies (IOCs) that shared in the country’s collective strategy of aggressive but environmentally conscious exploration and production activity.
The minister argued that the West African country, which commenced oil production late 2010, offered a politically stable and financially competitive environment for investment in the oil and gas industry.
“A sound foundation for competitiveness has been laid specifically in improving the living standards, economic growth, competitive corporate taxes, legal framework and fiscal policy,” said the minister, adding that ultimately such investments should be to the benefit of the people of Ghana and the investors.
According to Buah, Ghana is strategically located in the so- called New Deepwater Golden Triangle which connects three major regions(Brazil, the Gulf of Mexico and West Africa), which account for a bevy of oil, gas and condensate discoveries over the last five years, with a fast growing potential.
He therefore believed that as West Africa was expected to attract over 60 billion U. S. dollars towards the end of 2014 into its deep water exploration, Ghana’s Jubilee Phase 1A project, Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) fields, the Sankofa-Gye Nyame fields, and others were expected to take up a chunk of these investments.
Jubilee currently produces about 115,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) against a target of 120,000 bopd.
The local content provisions in Ghana’s petroleum agreements and the local policy soon to be passed into law provide for the use of Ghanaian goods and services in all phases of petroleum operation in so far as they are comparable to industry standards and are price competitive.
The theme for this year’s conference, the fifth to be held in Ghana since 2009, is “Deepwater Discoveries: Emerging Opportunities”.
Geophysics and Explorations Manager of the GNPC, Theo Ahwireng, said the upstream story of Ghana’s petroleum industry was unlocking resources which previously were thought to be non- existent or unreachable.
He said 22 out of the 23 discoveries made in Ghana since 2007 were drilled in water depths greater than 200 meters.
“The performance has triggered intense activity levels along the entire value chain with at least three to five major developments expected in Ghana alone in the next five years with expected capital expenditure of between 15 and 30 billion US dollars,” Ahwireng added.
