Hydrocarbons A rounded contribution

Outlook
With oil and gas exploration now fully under way, the government is keen to ensure exploration efforts on onshore acreage and other offshore blocks. Talking about the onshore Volta Basin, the chief executive of the GNPC, Nana Boakye Asafu Adjaye, says: “We have conducted field mapping and site surveying of selected locations for slim hole drilling.”

At the other end of the scale, AGM Gibraltar has signed a deal to explore the South Deepwater Tano Block in the western half of the Ghana Offshore Sedimentary Basin, which lies in ultra deepwater of 2,000-3,500 metres in depth. Sverre Skogen, the chairman of one of the companies that owns a stake in AGM Gibraltar, AGR, said: “We now look forward to bringing our significant collective experience in deep water exploration and moving forward with a plan to fulfil the agreed work programme.”

There now seems little doubt that Ghana will soon join the ranks of Africa’s second-tier oil producers, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and South Sudan, which each have annual production of 200-350,000 b/d. This would give Ghana similar per capita production capacity to Nigeria and provide an additional source of income for an economy already relatively well balanced. Yet the gas industry has perhaps even more potential to impact the domestic economy.

By improving power supplies, providing industrial feedstock, helping agriculture through fertiliser production and supplying cement producers, it can make a rounded contribution to economic development.