Herbert Krapa
Ghana’s upstream petroleum sector remains hugely attractive, with endless opportunities for prospective investors despite recent challenges.
The country’s stable regulatory regime has sustained interest in Ghana as more and more companies keep visiting Petroleum Commission’s data room, with renewed confidence to do business.
Minister of State at the Energy Ministry, Herbert Krapa, disclosed this at the 2024 Local Content Conference and Exhibition currently ongoing in Takoradi.
This year’s event is on the theme, “Attracting Exploration & Production Investments to Boost Local Content – New Pathways”.
Delegations from Nigeria, Namibia and Uganda are in attendance.
He mentioned that the maritime border dispute between Ghana and the Ivory Coast resulted in an interim injunction imposed by ITLOS on new drillings and exploration activities between 2015 and 2017, halting new investments in the sector.
“But we are recovering. We are reforming the business regulatory framework in the country and attention is being paid to other limiting conditions for new investments,” he said.
He added, “We have reviewed aspects of the existing legal and regulatory framework to attract new investments for Explosion and Production activities”.
“These reforms should encourage existing companies to continue to invest in new drilling activities, and optimise recovery from existing fields”, he added.
For his part, Chief Executive Officer of the Petroleum Commission Egbert Faibille Jnr, said since Ghana commenced commercial production of oil, the country has produced an equivalent of about 753 million barrels of oil as at August 2024.
He revealed that the Tweneboa Enyenra Ntomme (TEN) Field and the Sankofa Gye Nyame Field were brought on stream in August 2016 and May 2017 respectively.
He said recent exploration efforts between 2018 and 2022 saw six discoveries from seven wells drilled.
He noted that notwithstanding the initial growth and the successes evidenced by the discoveries, the industry has recently taken a downward trend in new investments and production volumes.
He, however, stressed that the Ministry of Energy and the Petroleum Commission are committed to doing all that is possible to attract new investments into Ghana’s Exploration and Production space.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi