Ghana’s petroleum upstream regulator, Petroleum Commission Ghana, is spearheading reforms in the regulatory and fiscal regime governing exploration of hydrocarbons in the West African nation with the aim of making the country’s upstream very attractive and competitive to investors.
Even before the global push for energy transition which has limited investment in the upstream sector intensified, Ghana’s upstream sector was less competitive as investors preferred other jurisdictions over Ghana.
In 2021, US oil and gas super major ExxonMobil abandoned its 80 per cent stake in the Offshore Cape Three Point (OCTP) sparking concerns by energy analysts as to what could be going wrong in the upstream petroleum industry.
Prior to ExxonMobil’s exit, Hess, which held 50 per cent stake in Deepwater Tano Cape Three Point block, offloaded its stake to Aker Energy now Peacan Energies and left the country.
In 2021, Anadarko also offloaded its stake in Tweneboa, Enyenra Ntomme (TEN) and Jubilee oilfields and left the country.
Speaking at the just-ended Africa Oil Week in Cape Town, South Africa, the Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Commission Ghana, Egbert Faibille Jnr., noted that many times when people are discussing the happenings in the upstream sector, they forget about what their competitors (other African nations) have done to their fiscal and regulatory regimes by way of making the extraction of their hydrocarbons very attractive to investors.
He said, “Ghana wants to walk that path and it is moving away from the current regime and has therefore made a raft of proposals to the Ministry of Energy for consideration.”
Making reference to Cote d’Ivoire, Namibia and Angola, Mr Faibille said, “Our people have to see what they have done with respect to the reforms they have made. We have to understand that you can’t go to the same market and compete with those who have made their regulatory regime more flexible and attractive. We must either be equal with them or better than them.”
Mr Faibille told the gathering and especially the investing community that giving the work the commission and other stakeholders, such as the GNPC, have done, it has positioned Ghana as the best place to invest.
“Now is the time to come to Ghana because we ourselves are more than convinced that we have to change the way of doing business. And our government is more than convinced that we have to change the way of doing things and our government is more than committed,” he added.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Discover more from Energy News Africa
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.