ENI, Springfield unitisation: PIAC calls for independent reassessment of data from parties

•ENI and Springfield have hit an impasse over talks to unitise the Sankofa and Afina oil fields

•Agyeman believes an independent reassessment of data from parties will facilitate the unitisation talks

•The Sankofa Oil fields form part of ENI’s Offshore Cape Three Points project

The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) has called for an independent reassessment of the Sankofa and Afina oil fields.

This comes after the two parties; ENI Ghana Exploration and Production and Springfield Exploration and Production Limited were in 2020 directed by the former Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu, to unitize their oil fields after an independent study conducted by the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) showed that the two oil blocks were connected.

But PIAC's Technical Manager, Mark Agyemang, in an interaction pointed, “In my opinion, I think that there should have been an independent assessor. It should not have been government carrying out the assessment. They should have appointed an independent assessor, who will make the data available to all parties, especially Eni.

“Parts of the Jubilee Fields have been unitised. The good thing is that there are already existing infrastructure there – that’s the Eni facilities; so we can just tap into that and then use them to develop the fields. Eni is asking that they should be granted permission to go to Springfield data room but Springfield is refusing that,” he said.

He however added that unitisation of oil fields was not a bad thing for the oil and gas sector as it helps to cut cost through facility and development costs.

Already, the Sankofa Oil fields forms part of ENI’s Offshore Cape Three Points project and lays off Ghana’s Atlantic Coast of which the GNPC says has reserves of about 40 billion cubic meters of gas and 500 million barrels of oil.