The country’s oilfields are expected to start producing additional 120,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) to offset the decline in production in recent years.
The feat is expected to generate more revenue for the state from carried interest, surface rentals and royalties, among others, in a major development to assist the economy come out of its current challenges.
Figures sourced from the Ministry of Energy (MoE) showed that the additional oil would come from opportunities in the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) Oil Field, the Greater Jubilee Southeast (JSE), and the Pecan Development Project which was approved last month.
Breakdown
The Chief Director of the Ministry of Energy, Wihelmina Asamoah, in response to the queries of the Daily Graphic dated July 10, 2023, pursuant to the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2019 (Act 989), stated that the JSE project was to add about 30,000 barrels of oil per day to the daily production from this month to the current Jubilee Field’s daily production.
The TEN enhancement project was also estimated to add close to 10,000 bopd.
Additionally, the development of Pecan is estimated to add about 80,000 bopd to the total daily production, she indicated, on behalf of the Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh.
“Five discoveries have been made in the last four years, out of which approvals have been granted for the appraisal of three which will lead to the determination of their commerciality and subsequent development,” Mrs Asamoah said.
She added that work was ongoing on two of the discovered fields which would lead to a decision to appraise them.
Asamoah indicated that contractors in the exploration phase were being supported by the ministry and its agencies to accelerate drilling of wells in their respective contract areas.
Context
The 2022 Annual Report of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) showed that the country’s crude oil production has suffered consistent decline since 2020.
From 71.44 million barrels (bbls) of crude oil produced in 2019 from the country’s three main fields, Jubilee, TEN and Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN), the volume of production declined to 660.93 million bbls in 2020, representing 6.32 per cent.
It further reduced to 55.10 million barrels in 2021, representing 17.75 per cent and then further down to 51.76 million barrels last year, representing 5.98 per cent.
The average decline over the three-year period is 10 per cent.
The country currently produces about 177,000 bopd.
It went down from the 179,000bopd it produced in November and December last year.
Unfavourable market conditions
Asamoah explained that the unfavourable market conditions and insufficient data on some of the basins were the two of the reasons that could cause disinterest in investments in hydrocarbon exploration and production.
She said the ministry, through its upstream regulator, the Petroleum Commission, was working to plug the data gaps to address the challenge.
The Chief Director said in the last few years, the energy transition priority actions had negatively impacted investments in oil and gas exploration and production globally.
Mrs Asamoah said capital or oil and gas exploration and production were becoming increasingly scarce, forcing some exploration and production companies to divest their portfolios into green energies.
“Ghana is experiencing its share of the impact which is why we are trying to further incentivise the industry to attract the few companies that are still interested in exploration,” she said.
Mobile drilling, roadshow
Asamoah stated that an example was the Petroleum Commission’s assistance in facilitating access to a mobile offshore drilling unit for a three-company drilling campaign.
She said the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation had also acquired two-dimensional (2D) seismic data over the Voltaian basin and was studying the data with the aim of drilling a well by 2024.
She explained that the overall goal was to determine “the prospectivity of the basin and subsequently develop the petroleum resources therein”.
The ministry has embarked on roadshows and conferences to attract investors into the industry.
As a result of these promotional activities, several prospective investors have indicated their interest and are going through the necessary processes to obtain licences to various blocks,” the Chief Director pointed out.
“The Petroleum Commission has signed various multi-client agreements for 3D seismic data acquisition in areas with little or no data within the basins,” Mrs Asamoah said.
Regulations
The Chief Director maintained that as part of its quest to increase reserves, the ministry had revised the Petroleum Exploration and Production) (General) Regulations, 2018 (LI 2359) to allow exploration within a development and production area under existing petroleum agreements.
Asamoah said before the review, such activities within a DPA would only be allowed under a new petroleum agreement.
The ministry had also reviewed the model petroleum agreement to make royalty rates more flexible and commensurate with different production volumes, she revealed.
“We believe these interventions will arrest the decline in our reserves and add more over the medium to long term,” she stated.
In an interview, the Executive Director of African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye, stated that the dwindling trends showed that the country had lost its focus with regard to expanding the industry.
That, he said, was because the government had not been strategic in advancing the oil industry to ensure that the country was able to add to production.
“We kept delivering speeches on producing 300,000 barrels in the short term and that has not been able to materialise because it takes action to unlock petroleum resources,” Boakye stressed.
Operational frustrations
He explained that firms currently operating in the oil exploration space had not been able to expand their operations due to frustrations in the environment.
In 2021, he indicated, ENI Ghana wanted to fast-track the development of the Eban discovery to increase oil production but the company could not secure the necessary approval.
Boakye said three months after Ghana made the discovery at Eban, Cote d’Ivoire was able to move into production in record time.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Upstream Petroleum Chamber (GUPC), David Ampofo, attributed the declining trends to slow investment in the country’s upstream petroleum industry.
He explained that Tullow and Kosmos had been the two main companies holding the fort since production started and that made efforts to drive in more investments over the years questionable.
“Production is dropping because we are not making more discoveries due to inadequate investments.
When the industry is active, there will be a lot of exploration taking place and that will boost production.
“We already have some few discoveries but we need to take them into production which demands investments,” he said.
Reversing the trend
In its 2022 report, PIAC emphasised the need for the country to speed up the sustainable development of its petroleum resources to reverse the decline in petroleum production.
It must do this by attracting new investors as well as ensuring early completion of ongoing projects.
Ampofo corroborated PIAC’s recommendation, saying to reverse the trend, the country needed to bring in more investments into the industry by encouraging more crude oil exploration.
He added that the government should take deliberate steps to position Ghana as an oil and gas investment destination in Africa.