A former Chief Executive Officer of Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC), Alex Mould has raised concern about the lack of transparency in all the agreements backing some Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contracts government has signed with some companies.
According to him, the regasification project agreement contracts of Helios/China Harbor Engineering, (GNPC) and Rosneft LNG needs checking into.
In his view, there was lack of proper world-class advisors on technical, commercial and legal areas of all of the LNG regasification project agreements signed a year ago on behalf of government given the short negotiation period.
Helios and China Harbor Engineering and GNPC are constructing a terminal for the regasification project which is to be managed by Tema LNG Terminal Company.
GNPC, last year June, signed a new gas sale and purchase agreement (GSA) deal with Rosneft for the same natural gas supply agreement it had signed with Gazprom in September 2017.
This raised a lot of questions by energy experts then as to what necessitated the abrogation of the Gazprom contract and the cost associated with the abrogation of that contract.
“It has been a year now, yet, stakeholders including Parliament and civil society are not getting much information about the LNG regasification project from government through the Ministry of Energy or from GNPC. There are more standing questions begging for answers”, Mr Mould told the media in an interview at LNG Western Africa Conference 2019 in Accra.
“I’m not conversant with the details with the LNG re-gas contract. I’ve not seen any agreement. I believe that there’s supposed to be a breakwater being built. I don’t know who is bearing the cost of the breakwater, whether it’s the government as GHAPOHA or whether it’s going to be passed on to the project. If it’s going to be passed on to the project, we need to look at the total economics. We need to look at the supply of breakwater the gas.”
“But it’s very interesting that a transaction of this size and this magnitude and this difficulty would be signed within 3 months. It’s something that we need to look at. We need to make sure that all Is are dotted and the Ts are crossed. It involves bringing in the right consultants to ensure that the right feasibility is done before any decision is made”.
“It also requires to understand what security structure is behind the transaction and what commitment Ghana has made to the project. So time will tell”.
South Africa’s Minister for Mineral Resources and Energy, Gwede Mantashe, has underscored the need for a stable, predictable policy and regulatory framework to be created to spur investments and growth in the country’s energy sector.
Minister Mantashe was delivering his first energy budget speech in Parliament since the merging of his mineral resources portfolio with that of energy following South Africa’s general election in May this year.
Announcing a budget of R7.44 billion for energy, the Minister noted that the sector had contributed negatively to overall economic growth in the first quarter of 2019, declining by 6.9% and making a 0.1% contribution to an overall GDP decline of 3.2%.
“Despite the present economic climate and stringent allocations, we must ascertain a secure and sustainable provision of energy,” he said.
“In this context, (we must) utilise diverse energy resources in sustainable quantities at affordable prices, and mindful of environmental requirements, to support economic growth and development.”
Legislation
The Minister re-iterated his announcement in recent weeks that work is under way to develop the Petroleum Resources Development Bill “to ensure we provide policy certainty for the upstream petroleum sector that is relatively new to our economy yet with great potential to grow GDP, contribute to the fiscus and create much needed jobs”.
The Gas Amendment Bill, he said, intends to leverage available gas resources such as those in the Karoo and the recent discoveries in the Brulpadda field, assisting in the implementation of gas-to-power projects.
Integrated Resource Plan (IRP)
The IRP, which considers a diversified energy mix that includes all forms of energy technology such as cleaner coal, gas, hydro, renewables and battery storage, is in the process of being finalised at the National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) and will be tabled before Cabinet for approval in September, the Minister said.
“As a country, we must avoid the currently polarised debate on energy, pitted as coal against renewables. The debate should be about the effective use of all of the energy sources at our disposal, to achieve security of supply.”
Development of a gas industry
To mitigate the impact of rising electricity prices on the cost of doing business in South Africa, greater use of natural gas is being explored, the Minister said.
While most of the country’s current supply of natural gas is from imports via the pipeline of the Mozambique Pipeline Investment Company (ROMPCO), more economical options need to be explored, including acceleration of South Africa’s own natural gas exploration activities.
Meantime, Mozambique will be engaged on the possibility of increasing and extending the supply of gas beyond 2023 and the importation of liquified natural gas (LNG) via the Coega Industrial Development Zone will be implemented.
Charting a successful way forward for South Africa’s oil and gas sector, building on the excitement of the Brulpadda Discovery, local content and increased gas to power potential will be at the forefront of discussions at the South Africa Showcase, a new feature for Africa Oil Week 2019 (Africa-OilWeek.com).
The Board of Directors of Libya’s National Oil Corporation (NOC) have approved the plans of the Zallaf Oil & Gas Exploration and Production Company in a bid to expedite exploration at the Atshan gas field (NC210 and NC151), with a view to supplying natural gas to the Obari power plant located 170 km away.
A feasibility study to further develop the field was presented to the NOC Board at corporation headquarters by Dr Khalifa Rajab, chairman of Zallaf’s management committee.
The Board authorized a series of comprehensive reservoir studies and a development plan to determine existing gas reserves, feasible production rates, and associated development and production costs.
NOC chairman, Eng. Mustafa Sanalla had previously discussed earlier this month the gas link proposal with the Minister of Planning, requesting a budget to fast-track project development to replace crude oil currently used as fuel at the plant.
Libya’s Presidency Council recently issued a resolution ratifying NOC supply of the power plant, while the General Electricity Company of Libya (GECOL) has been preparing for the station’s commissioning.
“Supplying natural gas instead of crude oil would increase the efficiency of the Obari plant and significantly reduce emissions. The switch to gas would also save at-least 15000 barrels per day that could be sold internationally – further increasing Libya’s export capacity and contributing to national revenue growth. We hope the Ministry will approve necessary funding so we are able to progress this strategic project as soon as possible,” Eng. Sanalla commented.
The meeting was also attended by NOC Board members, Eng. Abulgasem Shengheer and Mr Elamari M. Elamari; Dr Abdulsalam Abdullah Aziz, member of the exploration and production management committee; Mr Abdulhafid Abdullah Abu Ain, member of the operations, maintenance and materials management committee; and Mr Ahmad Erhumah, Zallaf’s planning and business development manager.
Norwegian E&P player Aker BP has made an oil find in the Liatårnet well located in the North of Alvheim and Krafla-Askja (NOAKA) area offshore Norway.
Aker BP said on Friday that it was completing the Liatårnet exploration well which holds a gross resource estimate of 80-200 mmboe.
According to the company, further data acquisition and analysis will be undertaken to determine the drainage strategy and recovery factor for the discovery, located in license 442 in the North Sea.
“The exploration success at Liatårnet is an encouraging result of a long-term strategy to unlock the exploration potential in the NOAKA area and provide the basis for an area development. The discovery represents a significant addition to the NOAKA resource base,” Evy Glørstad-Clark, Senior Vice President of exploration at Aker BP said.
Aker BP is the operator and holds 90.26 percent interest in license 442 with its partner LOTOS holding the remaining 9.74 percent.
In late June, the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) gave Aker BP a consent to use the Deepsea Stavanger rig for the drilling of the Liatårnet well, designated 25/2-20.
The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate granted a drilling permit for this well on Monday, June 17.
As for the NOAKA area it consists of the Frigg Gamma Delta, Langfjellet, Liatårnet, Frøy, Fulla, Frigg, Rind, and Krafla-Askja discoveries.
Including the preliminary volume estimates from the recent Liatårnet discovery, the gross resources in the area are estimated to be in the order of 700 mmboe.
Aker BP and the other partners have performed detailed studies of different development solutions for the NOAKA area. The development should capture all discovered resources in the area and facilitate future tie-ins of discoveries.
These studies have resulted in two alternative development solutions with one involving two unmanned production platforms supported from an existing host in the area while the other solution involves a new hub platform in the central part of the area which would entail processing and living quarters with Aker BP favoring the second concept.
Aker BP said in its 2Q financial report that it was planning to drill a new exploration well in the third quarter on the Nipa prospect in license PL 986 which has a pre-drill unrisked volume estimate of 35-115 mmboe.
Energy analyst and Chief Executive Officer of African Energy Consortium Limited, Kwame Jantuah, has called on the government to desist from appointing persons who lack the right expertise to head public institutions in the oil and gas industry.
According to him, the appointment of such individuals could lead to massive losses in the petroleum industry.
He said the government must subject heads of institutions such as the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to thorough interviews and vigorous selection processes to determine their knowledge of the petroleum industry before they are hired.
“We need to change the way we put our CEOs and those in charge of the oil sector in place. Why should it be the responsibility of the President to choose GNPC’s CEO? Why should it be the President to choose the head of the Petroleum Commission?
“In some countries, if you have not worked in the oil industry for a long time and you are not seasoned, you can’t take over those positions. Brazil is one of them. You have to work in the oil industry and you have to be proven that you understand what it means to work in the oil industry,” Mr. Jantuah stated.
Source: Citinewsroom.com
Karpowership Ghana Company, an independent power producer has refurbished the only library serving academia in Ghana’s industrial city, Tema.
Prior to the renovation, the Tema Municipal Library had not seen any development regarding its state since it was built in the year 2000.
According to the Corporate Communications Specialist for Karpowership Ghana, the refurbishment of the library by Karpowership Ghana was crucial.
Ms Sandra Amarquaye explained that this is in tandem with the company’s objectives of impacting lives in the society they operate in.
“We do not only want to be known for providing reliable electricity to homes and industries in the country but also to positively impact society with this refurbished facility,” she said.
She said the library project is to help cultivate a culture of reading in the younger generation.
“It is a well-accepted term that readers are leaders and for this reason, we seek to contribute our quota to the future leaders of Ghana with this refurbished library,” she noted.
She also observed that the project was Karpowership’s own way of bidding farewell to the Tema community which had been its host for the last three years.
The company is fervently preparing to relocate its 470 MW Powership to the Sekondi Naval Base next month to utilize the country’s indigenous Natural Gas in the Western enclave.
Ms Amarquaye stated how the people of Tema had been continuously supportive of their operations since their inception in 2015 and had served as their home through the hospitality extended by the community.
“We are grateful to the community and the traditional leaders for their support through our stay here”.
The Chief Executive of the Ghana Library Authority (GLA), Hayford Siaw, was grateful to Karpowership for the social interventions.
He said, “the goal of the GLA is to ensure all the libraries we have are of modern standard for usage. The Authority has started embarking on some renovation works of the libraries across the country.”
“We will like to call upon organizations to emulate the works of Karpowership to assist with our libraries,” he said.
Mr Siaw noted that it was important for the younger generations to be nurtured to cultivate the habit of reading.The state of Tema Municipal Library before it was renovated
Panellists at the just-ended Ghana Energy Summit have called on government of Ghana to ensure that seismic and other geological data about the oil and gas sector are made available to investors seeking to participate in the country’s energy sector.
The West African nation’s recent licensing bid round for six oil blocks in the Western Basin was poorly patronized because of challenges including gaps in the legislative instruments as well as low quality of data on the blocks.
“Our basins are largely not de-risked, significant data gaps and low data quality still exist, and many companies continue to site our fiscal regime as disincentives. The recent results of Ghana’s first licensing round, although not satisfactory in terms of the response rate, has confirmed the fears about a developing industry and the risk associated with frontier areas,” Ghana’s Energy Minister John-Peter Amewu said recently.
Speaking on the theme ‘Leveraging the opportunities in the energy sector’, Joe Mensah, CEO of Kosmos Energy, and Mr. Kweku Andoh Awotwi-Managing Director of Tullow Ghana and Executive Vice President of Tullow Oil Plc, argued that accessing data in the sector is extremely difficult, and government needs to make such important data available to investors willing to invest in the space.
“Regulation is very, very important. Back in the day, we were trying to go to the data room to look at data and decide whether we want to go to a certain area to explore. It took us about three months to really agree on a one-page confidentiality document. Back and forth, and they finally went to the minister and said, ‘Please, we have to do something here’.
“Someone wants to come to your country and look at data and potentially invest billions of dollars, and you put this roadblock here to prevent that individual from coming here. What good is it for you?” Mr. Mensah said.
He asked government to make it much easier for investors, but also make sure the data is available early.
“Make the bar low enough for the person to come in; in fact, make it free for them to come in and look at the data. When they go out and discover or find something, then you can open up your chest and say ‘Now I want something. Now I want this’. That is the way you go about it.
“Today, there is nothing [no exploration] happening out there; and if we do not get our act together and accelerate the pace, we will plateau – and once we start coming down, what do you have to fill the pipeline? And yet we are projecting that we want to be producing 500,000 barrels/ day,” he added.
Mr. Awotwi also concurred: “Right or wrong, investors had a hard time getting access to the seismic data (geological) that underpins a lot of these things. Investors had a hard time getting access to that information, and maybe the lessons learnt is that government and the Energy Ministry need to be more accessible in terms of providing that data, and hopefully they will do so next time”.
Asked whether the inability to access relevant data on time affected Tullow’s chances in Ghana’s just-ended first oil-blocks bidding round, the astute energy expert said: “It might have been so. We certainly, as Tullow, made our position known to government that it was difficult to share data. We wanted to share data with investors and we had real difficulties. That was unfortunate; there was no need for that. One has to hope that we can learn from this”.
With effect from 1 July 2019, municipal tariff hikes in South Africa kicked in with rate increases ranging from electricity to refuse and solid waste collection to water.
The municipal tariff hike that sparked the most interest is the increase in electricity rates, which municipalities are being accused of not following proper procedures in implementing the hikes.
Tshwane municipality has been at the centre of this debacle, and the energy regulator, NERSA, has given the municipality seven days, to explain why the metro wants to increase fixed charges to customers.
The regulator stated that Tshwane municipality’s current application for a hike is incomplete.
Adhering to legislative requirements
Commenting on the development, Ronald Chauke, OUTA’s portfolio manager on energy, said: “As OUTA we are concerned about the failure by both City of Tshwane (COT) and NERSA to adhere to legislative requirements and timelines.
“For instance, in terms of the Municipal Finance Management Act, NERSA was supposed to approve the municipal tariffs by no later than mid-March each year to enable the municipalities to go and consult their customers, prior to the new tariff implementation date of 01st July. But this has not happened.”
Because of this failure, Chauke says, both NERSA and the COT are in breach of the law.
Chauke raised more concerns, stating: “What does it mean for NERSA to be conducting a public hearing for new tariffs that are supposed to be effective from 01st July 2019 on the 11th July 2019? Will NERSA make an urgent determination for the COT to implement interim electricity tariffs effective 01st July or will the previously applicable tariffs for the 2018/19 continue to be applicable until a NERSA determination is made?”
Conduct cost of supply study
According to OUTA, on Thursday (11 July 2019) COT acknowledged under oath during a public hearing, convened by NERSA, that they did not conduct a cost of supply study.
“OUTA views this as both parties are at fault,” said Chauke, adding “for instance, OUTA has sent recommendations to NERSA as part of the 2018 consultation paper on municipal tariff guidelines and benchmarks that NERSA must include the issue of compliance by conducting a cost of supply study as a license condition to its licensees (i.e. municipalities).”
Expressing disappointment, Chauke said: “But it seems NERSA has failed to include OUTA’s recommendation into the enforcement framework, hence, municipalities are continuing to take advantage of lack of punitive measures and enforcement by the energy regulator.”
In terms of implementing hikes without proper consultation with consumers, Chauke stressed that this demonstrates the challenges that exist in the electricity distribution industry (EDI) leading to customers being ripped-off.
He highlighted that the COT is proposing an increase from the existing fixed charge for residential customers from R56 to R120 on a monthly basis “under false pretences, as evidence revealed that when they were conducting their alleged flawed consultation process”.
“It is obvious that bold interventions and structural reforms must be initiated from the policy front and there must be political will to correct this unfortunate service delivery phenomenon,” said Chauke.
Source: Esi-Africa.com
Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries would soon heave a sigh of relief from the importation of petroleum products, with the imminent completion of the 650,000 barrels-per-day (bpd) Dangote Refinery at Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos.
Group Executive Director in-charge of Strategy, Capital Projects & Portfolio Development for the Refinery Devakumar Edwin, expressed this view during the opening of the Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhIPCON), which took place in Accra, capital of Ghana.
This year’s conference held under the theme: ‘Regional Collaboration: A Catalyst for Transformation,” organized under the auspices of the Ministry of Energy and the National Petroleum Authority, was attended by stakeholders in the petroleum sector in the West Africa region.
Mr. Edwin expressed the belief that the completion of Dangote Refinery and other modular refineries projects across West Africa, would lead to the integration of the downstream industries and stabilize the prices of petroleum products across the African sub-region.
He stressed the need for other investors in West Africa to emulate the investment drive of Aliko Dangote in the downstream petroleum sector and make the sub-region exporter of refined products.
He also urged investors in sub-Saharan Africa to take the bull by the horn by investing in the downstream sector.
According to him, “If Dangote can do it, any investor can do it. Dangote has not waited for government to regulate the downstream sector before starting the construction of the refinery.”
“We don’t need foreign investors to turn around our downstream sector. African investors should be able to emulate Dangote and revive the African downstream petroleum industry,” he added.
He assured that the refinery is designed to process multiple grades of domestic and foreign crude, which can be converted into high-quality gasoline, diesel, kerosene, and aviation fuels that meet Euro V emissions specifications.
The facility, according to him, would be integrated with a petrochemical unit that will produce polypropylene and fertilisers.
Mr. Edwin said Nigeria would soon become the largest exporter of fertiliser in Africa as the Dangote Fertiliser Company is set to commence full production.
According to him, pre-commissioning activities have started while construction work is still on-going at the Dangote Refinery site.
The Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhipCon) which begun on Wednesday July 10, at the plush Movenpick Hotel in Accra ended on Thursday, July 11, 2019.
Ghana’s Vice President Dr. Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia delivered a keynote address at the conference, which was organized by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), in partnership with the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors Companies (CBOD) and the Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMC’s).
The theme for the conference was “Regional Collaboration; A Catalyst for Transformation”.
Panelists were drawn from across the West African sub-region including Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Cote D’Ivoire and Togo.
They discussed issues of governmental and regulatory policy, and best practices for the advancement of the downstream petroleum industry.
Below are some of the exclusive photos captured by energynewsafrica.com.
IBC SOLAR is supporting Bavarian Universities to create a pilot project for expanding the energy supply into rural areas of Namibia.
In a press statement, the energy firm explained that the aim of the project ‘PROCEED‘ is to achieve a sustainable improvement in the energy supply based on renewable energy.
The research will also be funded by the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) with approximately 1.24 million Euros in the next three years.
IBC SOLAR is supporting the University of Bayreuth, the Technical University of Ingolstadt and the Neu-Ulm University of Applied Sciences as an industry partner for the project in order to secure and increase the energy supply in remote areas of Namibia.
The system house will be primarily responsible for the technical appraisal and long-term monitoring of existing systems during the project. This also includes developing system improvements for storage and control systems and delivering the corresponding components.
“Solar power is now cheaper than electricity from the grid and the PV market in Southern Africa has significant growth potential,” Albert Engelbrecht, Senior Vice President Solutions International at IBC SOLAR explained.
“We are very pleased to be helping the universities implement this project with our expertise and products. The project contains promising solutions which can also be used to improve the energy supply in other rural areas of Africa cost-effectively and efficiently,” Engelbrecht said.
Together with the system house, the researchers will use renewable energy and stand-alone grids referred to as “mini-grids” to implement the project. These decentralized power grids restricted to smaller areas are operated by local providers and are not embedded into a unified nationwide integrated grid. In cooperation with Namibian partners, decentralized models for the energy infrastructure will be developed in the future, which correspond to the local electricity demand, making use of current technical possibilities and are accepted by the rural population. These island grids ought to be economically viable and easy to maintain.
More than half of Namibia’s rural population have no access to electricity. Connecting households to the national power grid is neither technically nor economically practical in many parts of the country. The lack of access to electricity is one of the main drawbacks in the efforts to reduce poverty and achieve industrialization.
Source: Esi-Africa.com
Consumption of petroleum products in Ghana increased by 15% in 2018, the country’s downstream petroleum regulator, National Petroleum Authority has revealed.
This was as a result of efforts towards curbing illicit fuel activities coupled with deliberate technology based schemes and policy initiatives aimed at propelling private sector growth.
Chief Executive Officer of the West African country’s National Petroleum Authority, Hassan Tampuli, who revealed this at the 3rd edition of the Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhIPCon) 2019 said consumption grew by “15% from 3.4million Mt in 2017 to 3.9 million Mt in 2018”.
He added that petroleum sector had contributed over GHS86 billion to Ghana’s GDP representing an average of about 8% per annum in the period 2013 to 2018.
These successes, he explained, were achieved despite the many challenges the petroleum industry faces. Some of the challenges he enumerated included “smuggling via unapproved offshore routes, dumping of Gasoil declared for sale to foreign vessels at local filling stations, under-declaration and non-declaration of products lifted at depots; diversion of subsidized social products such as premix fuel, as well as fraudulent freight claims from some transporters and siphoning LPG from BRVS into surface tanks at illegal LPG tank”.
These “nefarious activities” he added, cost Ghana “about $200million per annum of tax revenue; compromising on product quality at filling stations due to laundering which leads to damage to vehicle engines; and distortion of the national consumption statistics (over 300,000Mt of actual annual consumption was unreported).
He also said that the “Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) also recorded about USD12million losses per annum”.
In addressing the stated challenges, Mr. Tampuli mentioned that the NPA had “rolled out a series of measures to tackle the problem heads on, in collaboration with the Ghana Revenue Authority, Ghana Navy and other relevant security agencies in the country”, and intensified “digital solutions such as Enterprise Relational Database Management Software, Petroleum Products Marking Scheme and Bulk Road Vehicle Tracking project”.
Mr. Tampuli urged “participants to use this GHIPCON platform to deliberate on the key issues” in the petroleum industry with a “focus on the strategies” needed “in order to achieve the vision of being ‘A Catalyst for Transformation’ together” in line with this year’s theme.
He also assured participants that “the key recommendations” from the conference “will be taken on board in efforts to ensure efficiency in the Ghana petroleum downstream industry”.
On his part, Vice President of Ghana, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia said the petroleum downstream sector had witnessed a significant expansion following government’s deregulation policy.
“This sector has witnessed significant investment and expansion of petroleum products storage and outlet facilities,” he said.
“The investment has been championed by the private sector which is mostly dominated by a growing number of indigenous Ghanaian companies.
“For instance, over the past eight years, the industry has grown from a total of eight (8) Bulk Distribution Companies (BDCs) to 35. The number of Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) has grown from eight one (81) to one hundred and fifteen (115)”.
Dr. Bawumia also mentioned as at May 2019, there were 19 companies providing support services for the sector in areas such as tank calibration, underground storage tank (UST) and Above Storage Tank (AST) cleaning, Non-Destructive Testing (NDT), amongst others.
The Managing Director of BOST, Mr. George Mensah Okley, has said there is a need for the petroleum hub project to be assigned to an entity that would be solely responsible for its operations, in order to ensure proper accountability and sustainability.
He was speaking as a panelist on the first day of this year’s edition of the Ghana Energy Summit, organized by the Business and Financial Times (B&FT) and Ministry of Energy in Accra. He was contributing to the topic ‘Ghana’s petroleum hub project – The dream, opportunities and how to get there’.
The gathering of industry players included Mr. George Mensah Okley, CEO-BOST; Mrs. Abigail Asonlange Harlley, CEO-AI Energy Group, Mr. Isaac Osei, Managing Director-TOR; and Mr. Kwame Jantuah, CEO-African Energy Consortium.
According him, the need for a hub is to allow the country to become the nerve-centre of the sub-region when it comes to petroleum. But this dream, he added, cannot be solely managed by the private sector due to lack of capacity to run a petroleum hub since it involves resources and hard work – hence, a Public Private Partnership is key.
“We need to leverage on our existing infrastructure, connect them together; then we look at demand so we can fully utilize the infrastructure we will put in place,” he said.
He further stated: “We need capital investment and that can happen when we are able to explore the diaspora bond by partnering with them for investment and exploit the local content”.
Adding to the submission, Madam Harlley added that government must consider tax breaks for the private sector to allow more private participation.
She added that the financial industry has a critical role to play. “Our financial sector should position itself to assist the private sector to serve as a source of funding,” she said.
There is a need for private-public partnerships, which according her will go a long way to actualize the dream of a petroleum hub in Ghana.
Mr. Osei also stated that we need to have a multi-modal approach to transporting products that are obtained from the petroleum industries. “If we do not have that, it becomes too expensive – not only for consumers, but also for the country,” he said.
According to him, we can transport these via roads, water and rail. He further stated that these factors must be considered before actualizing the project.
Mr. Jantuah added: “In order for that, we need to build capacity and engage with countries in the sub-region with similar thoughts of a petroleum hub,” he said.
The African Energy Consortium CEO further added that government is currently conducting a feasibility exercise, drafting a policy framework, establishing a corporation for the hub among others. This, according to him, are the various blueprints that are currently being done; and he therefore called for collaboration between government and the private sector.
The hub upon completion is estimated to create about 750,000 jobs.
The two-day summit seeks to address opportunities in the energy sector and the role of local participation. The summit ended yesterday.
The Dominican Republic has launched its first ever oil and gas licensing round, offering 14 offshore and onshore blocks up for bidding to interested oil companies.
The blocks on offer are located in the Cibao, Enriquillo, Azua, and San Pedro basins of the Carribean island nation.
Energy intelligence group Wood Mackenzie is assisting the country’s Ministry of Energy and Mines with the evaluation, planning, and execution of the licensing round.
Juan Agudelo, Director of Upstream Consulting at Wood Mackenzie, said the exploration performed in the country since the early 20th century indicated the presence of a working petroleum system.
He said: “Blocks will be awarded based on work commitments for the first exploration phase. The Dominican Republic is incentivizing the acquisition of geological and geophysical data, while providing flexibility to explorers on how to conduct activities during the contract exploration phase. Operators will have between eight to 10 years to explore and must drill one well.”
“This round aims to boost exploration of oil and gas in the Dominican Republic. The country currently doesn’t have any operators searching for new fields. If the rounds attracts explorers, it will bring investment and help to de-risk the oil and gas potential in the country,” Agudelo said.
According to the Ministry of Energy and Mines, interested companies need to send documentation by October 13 for prequalification, after which the eligible oil firms will take part in the auction.
The ministry on Wednesday hosted a launching ceremony in Houston, and according to the ministry, the companies that attended the opening of the round were, among others, Anadarko, Apache, ExxonMobil, Noble Energy, CNOOC, Shell, Repsol, seismic players CGG, PGS, Westerngeco, and offshore driller Transocean
