According to the country’s public interest and accountability committee (PIAC), Ghana’s crude oil production rose 10.7% year over year in the first half of 2024, reversing an annual production fall that started five years earlier.
Ghana, Africa’s top gold producer, started producing crude oil in 2010, but production dropped to a five-year low in 2023 as a result of existing fields’ declining productivity, thus wiping out the benefits from new wells.
Oil output increased to 24.86 million barrels by June 2024, according to PIAC, a state agency responsible with overseeing the industry, but it fell 13.2% during the same period in 2023.
The Jubilee South East (JSE) project, run by Tullow Oil (TLW.L), opened new tab, which started production in late 2023, was the main driver of the increase.
The JSE is a recent discovery in Jubilee, the nation’s first oil field, where production peaked.
According to Isaac Dwamena, coordinator of the PIAC Secretariate, “we are hopeful that the first-half output increment in 2024 will be sustained, thereby reversing the annual oil production declines,” he told Reuters on Thursday.
According to PIAC’s half-year report, the higher oil output drove a roughly 56% year-over-year increase in petroleum revenue, which reached $840.8 million by June.
According to PIAC, roughly 7% of Ghana’s government revenues comes from petroleum.
By June, gas production had increased by 7.5% to 139.86 million standard cubic feet.
Dwamena emphasized the difficulties that Ghana’s petroleum industry faces, including both technological and natural problems.
Petroleum companies are required by Ghanaian law to give the state free and carried interest in at least 12% of each project; Dwamena pointed out that this requirement can be expensive for investors.
“The state can take 15%, 20% carried interest based on negotiations, and that has been a disincentive,” he stated.
The West African nation intends to increase output by selling additional exploration rights in order to avoid stranded fossil fuels and to raise money for its energy transformation.
Currently, Eni (ENI.MI), Tullow (TLW.L), Kosmos (KOS.N), and PetroSA are among the oil corporations that operate in Ghana.
Source: newsthemegh.com