The Africa Center for Energy Policy (ACEP) has urged the government to, as a matter of urgency, review all existing Petroleum Contracts and their deliverables to ensure that companies who are not complying with their contracts are sanctioned appropriately.
According to ACEP, out of the 15 active Petroleum Agreements, beyond the producing fields of Jubilee, TEN and Sankofa, only two companies HESS/AKER and ENI have delivered on their obligations.
Commenting on the state of contracts in the petroleum sector at the launch of ACEP’s 2019 Petroleum Contract Monitor Report in Accra, the Executive Director of ACEP Benjamin Boakye said by hijacking and not fulfilling their obligations on oil blocks in the country, some oil companies are denying Ghana the opportunity to produce more oil to meet the objective of oil production for national development.
“In 2016, you gave a block to Eni and in 2019 they have made a discovery. That tells you that if you bring in capable companies they will be able to operate their given fields, drill and discover oil. So, simply the situation we are faced with is that the companies who are giving excuses haven’t really shown the capacity to exploit the blocks.
They are simply incapable of delivering on the contractual obligations between those companies and Ghana. It becomes important for us to take a second look at those contracts to ensure that if they are not delivering then we go the route that will allow companies that are capable to come into our waters and ensure that Ghana can produce more oil.”
The current list of petroleum agreements in Ghana include but not limited to PA’s between Ghana and companies like Erin Energy Ghana Limited, Amni International Petroleum Development Company, AGM Petroleum Ghana Limited, Sahara Energy Fields Ghana Limited, Eni Ghana Petroleum, UB Resources Limited among others.
