The Norwegian Embassy in the West African nation, Ghana, in collaboration with upstream regulator Petroleum Commission- Ghana, has organized a two-day conference on building high-value sustainable ocean industries from Ghana’s offshore petroleum activities.
The conference brought together major players in Ghana’s oil and gas sector including Norwegian Ambassador to Ghana Mr Gunnar Andreas Holm, and Ghana’s Minister for Energy John -Peter Amewu.
The objectives of the conference were to identify key inputs and success criteria for building high-value sustainable ocean industries from the upswing in Ghana’s petroleum activities, explore how Norwegian and Ghanaian partnership can create sustainable value chains in Ghana, create a platform to promote and strengthen partnerships between Norwegian and Ghanaian ocean industries, as well as raise awareness of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 14, which aims at conserving and sustainably using the ocean, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
Among the topics which were discussed were: ‘How can various Ghanaian instruments and institutions facilitate partnerships’, ‘How can Norwegian instruments and institutions facilitate partnerships’, ‘Policies and strategies to optimize the benefits of Ghana’s petroleum resources’ and ‘Industry perspective on building skills and capacity in Ghana’s petroleum and maritime industries’.
Speakers at the conference were CEO of Aker Energy, Jan Arve Haugan; Managing Director of ENI Ghana, Mr. Roberto Daniele; Managing Director of ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Ghana (Deepwater) Ltd, Ms. Randi Cruz and Vice Chairman of Ghana Upstream Petroleum Chamber, Mr Charles Darku; Provost of Regional Maritime University, Ing. Augustus Addy-Lamptey and Mr Mustapha Hameed from the Accelerated Oil and Gas Capacity Programme (AOGC).
