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Social
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Ghana’s Oil Find, A Silver Lining
By Gideon Sackitey, Ghanadot,
ACCRA
The Date June 18, 2007 would definitely be etched on the
minds of Ghanaians for all their lives. President John
Agyekum Kufuor called the events of the day “the silver
lining of a very dark period in the history of the country.”
It was the day that Ghanaians joined the league of oil
producing nations, having been informed of the discovery of
oil in commercial quantities by Kosmos Energy; Anadarko
Petroleum and Tullow Ghana Limited. Specifically, between
300 million to 400 million barrels.
The consortium engaged in oil exploration in Cape Three
Points in the Western Region on Monday made the simultaneous
announcement.
Kosmos made the announcement in Accra, while Tullow and
Anadarko made theirs in London and New York, respectively.
Even though Mr James C. Mussleman, Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Kosmos Energy pleaded with
President John Agyekum Kufuor and Ghanaians to hold on for a
while for more findings and activity, our expectations as a
people cannot be held down, since in the words of the
President himself it is going to lift us up out of the
doomsday prophesy some have slated for this country.
The fact is that the Consortium struck 40 miles deep into
the sea in the west of Cape Three Points, near Axim.
Kosmos, which has signed a seven-year exploration agreement
with Ghana is looking forward to working with the Government
and people of the country to develop the resource.
President Kufuor’s position was that the discovery should
embolden and encourage all Ghanaians to be optimistic about
the country's future as the prospects were brighter than
ever before.
To Kosmos, he charged to extract the resource in no time, to
break its own record of 14b months in Equatorial Guinea, by
moving quickly to develop Ghana's reserve to make the
country overcome its current energy problems.
"We pray that the Company would be successful so that our
country would not become a beggar in the energy sector
anymore,” President Kufuor said knowing to well the nation’s
current status of one of the world’s poorest countries.
He argued that the discovery was a vindication of the good
decision of ensuring that the GNPC concentrated on its core
business operation.
The Government has since 2001 made strenuous efforts to
overcome the problem of energy and crude oil production.
In London, Mr Aiden Heavey, Chief Executive Officer of
Tullow was ecstatic as well saying that the discovery of oil
in the Mahogany Well-1 represents a major event for the
Republic of Ghana and for Tullow, adding that, “based on the
evidence collated to date, ultimate resources are likely to
be in excess of previous estimates."
Mr Heavey put the present estimates at between 300 million
barrels and 400 million barrels.
In New York Bob Daniels, Anadarko's, Senior Vice President,
Worldwide Exploration, described it as an exciting start to
our 2007 exploration programme offshore West Africa.
He said to date the well has been drilled to a depth of
approximately 12,083 feet and is planned to reach a total
depth of 13,780 feet, adding that once the well reached the
target depth it would be suspended for evaluation and
appraisal.
Kosmos Energy, the block operator and Anadarko, technical
operator, hold 30.875 per cent of the shares each; Tullow
has 22.896 per cent; Sabre Oil and Gas Limited has 1.854 per
cent and E.O. Group, a Ghanaian oil and gas company, holds
3.5 per cent of the shares in the Block.
There are 126 crew members including 16 Ghanaians on board
the USA Bedford Dolphin Drilling Ship undertaking the
exploration exercise.
As Mr Mussleman said, "We are pleased that the first well in
our multi-well West Africa exploration drilling programme is
a success." But Ghanaians cannot be anymore happier since
this means quite a lot to them. To many it is the end of a
long period of constantly having to adjust to changing oil
prices on the world market which immediately translates into
the hiking of prices of all other products in the country.
That President Kufuor and government officials popped
Champaign when the news was broken to them at the Castle on
Monday tells you how much it means to them and all
Ghanaians. For the President it lifts a heavy burden off his
shoulders given the potential of the raking in of millions
of dollars that actually would make the natin Ghana quite
powerful in the sub-region.
To him things are quite bad for the country. But as he
explained, steps taken by government are lifting us up
significantly. But the oil find would move things faster and
give us more clout in our dealings with our development
partners and neighbours.
But the reality is that companies producing the oil have to
be competitive and stay in business. Hence that aspect of
having to buy below the world price may be debatable and
actually far from reality.
Also, we as a people should work at ensuring that the oil
find does not split us any further than we have come so far
as is the case in certain parts of the world where they
produce oil, especially Nigeria.
But as someone pointed out, the discovery of oil is not the
end of our problems as a people. If anything at all, it is
definitely the beginning of very unlikely turn of events. My
word is that, we learn from the sad and debilitating
mistakes of earlier discoveries by some countries. We must
make sure that we are not cheated, short changed or left in
the cold in negotiating acceptable terms in our dealings
with the oil companies.
Government should not look at political expediency, but look
out broad and wide to pick up very endowed persons to do the
negotiations. For this, Ghanaians are waiting eagerly for
the right things to be done. Anything less and you will hear
them.
In the meanwhile, we will be drinking Champaign.
Gideon Sackitey, Accra, June 18, 2007, Ghanadot.com
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GOVT says its not
apathetic
Ghanadot.com - In 1995, a group of politicians
embarked on a demonstration to protest against
the introduction of the Value Added Tax in
Ghana. The Association of Committee for the
Defence of the Revolution, believed to be
sponsored by the then National Democratic
Congress (NDC) government, countered the
demonstration and in the process four lives were
lost. . .......More
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CHAMBAS
IS
ECOWAS
PRESIDENT
Ghanadot.com
;
Dr.
Mohammed
Ibn
Chambas
of
Ghana
was
on
Saturday
installed
the
First
President
of
The
ECOWAS
Commission
at
its
inauguration
in
Ouagadougou,
Burkina-Faso.
He
is
to
be
assisted
by
two
Vice
Presidents
and
seven
commissioners
yet
to
be
appointed.
Biography
of
Dr
Chambas:......More
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“Hotel
Kufuor" opens next month?
Ghanadot - After months of
controversy concerning sources of funding and alleged misuse
of state funds, information filtering into Ghanadot.com
offices in Accra indicates that the so-called “Kufuor Hotel”
is set to open in February 2007.....More |
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Night
cleaning of Accra begins
GNA - The Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and
Environment, in collaboration with the National Youth Employment
Programme (NYEP) on Monday began an exercise for daily night
cleaning of the Central Business District of Accra. ....More |
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