Ghanaian Staff to Make Up 90% of Oil and Gas Industry Workforce By 2020

Nine out of 10 jobs in Ghana’s nascent oil and gas industry should be held by Ghanaians by 2020 under newly drafted legislation set for government approval, Vice President John Dramani Mahama said.

Companies that don’t comply with the target for local employment will have to provide “detailed” explanations to lawmakers and present a plan for how the staffing level will be met, Mahama told a conference in the capital, Accra, today.

Production from the country’s offshore Jubilee oilfield, the West African nation’s first major oil find, will begin in December, he said.

Rules to outline the local-content policy and to determine how petroleum-industry revenue will be spent have been “drafted for approval” by lawmakers, Mahama said.

Partners in the Jubilee field include U.K. explorer Tullow Oil Plc, The Woodlands, Texas-based Anadarko Petroleum Corp., Dallas, Texas-based Kosmos Energy LLC and state-owned oil company Ghana National Petroleum Corp.