Participants at the event
CONTRACTS AWARDED indigenous companies to provide essential goods and services to international oil companies in exploration and production is growing.
In 2020, out of a total of $1.3 billion of service contracts awarded in the oil and gas sector, $238 million in value terms went to indigenous Ghanaian companies.
About $1.1 billion also went to joint ventures including indigenous Ghanaian companies (IGCs).
Additionally, as at the end of the 3rd quarter of 2021 IGCs and Joint Ventures benefitted from value of service contracts worth $5.2 million and $45 million respectively out of a total sum of $54 million.
Egbert Faibille Jnr., Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Petroleum Commission Ghana, revealed this at the 2022 Local Content Conference and Exhibition held in Takoradi.
It was on the theme “Sustaining Local Content Development Through Enhanced Exploration and Production Activities in The Era of Energy Transition.”
He said Ghana, like other resource rich developing economies, has been confronted with energy transition.
He added that one of the key effects of the transition has been the systematic shift in investments from fossil fuel development projects to renewable energy.
He noted that the upstream petroleum sector continued to face several challenges which, to a large extent, was stifling the growth and development of indigenous participation in the sector.
“It is, therefore, important that we strive to eliminate all barriers to local participation in our industry. It is on this basis that the commission worked with the Ministry of Energy to obtain Parliamentary approval for amendments to L.I. 2204 to further deepen local content in Ghana’s upstream oil and gas industry,” he disclosed.
He said “This is to ensure that the Local Content Agenda in the upstream oil and gas industry can still go alongside the need to attract foreign direct investment for the industry.”
He mentioned that the commission would continue to train Ghanaians to international standards to replace expatriates in the upstream petroleum sector, in furtherance of job role localisation.
FROM Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi