Ghana has signed 18 upstream oil contracts since it began oil production in 2011, the 2019 Petroleum Sector Reform has revealed.
They include contract areas such as Deep Water Tano owned largely by Tullow Oil, West Cape Three Point, Central Tano Black, East Keta Offshore, South West Saltpond and Offshore Cape Three Points South.
But an analysis of the existing petroleum agreements reveals that, most of the contractors have not delivered on the minimum contractual obligations in the Petroleum Agreements signed with Ghana.
Unfortunately, according to the report, some of the companies have been given extensions without paying any penalties for the inactivity on their blocks.
The analysis however excludes the three producing contract areas and is limited to the non-producing and exploratory contract areas, excluding the Deepwater Cape Three Points Block acquired by ExxonMobil which received parliamentary ratification in April 2019.
The report emphasized that countries make their strategic choices on where they want to focus more attention, leading them to specialise in particular links of the industry value-chain.
Most of the literature on local content, however, recommends efforts to ensure benefit maximisation across the entire value-chain of natural resource exploitation. This means, countries will have to build capacity where it is lacking, and the obligation for the transfer of knowledge, skills and technology should be key considerations in the negotiation of Petroleum Agreements.
Ghana goes along the path of target setting, but also provides in general terms that, the policy objective is to give first consideration to Ghanaian independent operators in the award of oil blocks, oil field licenses, oil lifting licenses, and in all projects for which contract is to be awarded in the Ghanaian oil and gas industry.
However, a major weakness many local content policies tend to suffer is that strong market forces already operate in what is largely a globally-sourced industry..com
Source: mypublisher24.com
