Ghana Moves to Become Hub for Rapid Oil Spill Response

By J. Ato Kobbie, Managing Editor [The Business Analyst]

Even as Ghanaians wonder about the level of the country’s preparedness in responding to oil and oil-related spillage, environmental experts are already looking at Ghana becoming the hub for rapidly responding to such incidents in the West African sub-region.

Disclosing this to participants on the second day of the three-day Ghana Summit on oil and gas held at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) last week, Mr. Kojo Agbenor-Efunam, Principal Programme Officer (Oil and Gas) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said recent industry activities and discoveries in other West African countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, have increased risk levels and therefore stakeholders have been discussing the need to pool resources together to effectively respond to any spillages. In a presentation that focused on Ghana’s capacity building and preparedness to dealing with oil spillage, Mr. Agbenor-Efunam said following initial studies undertaken as far back as 1986, with the assistance of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to assess the country’s risk level, the country started building capacity for dealing with any eventual oil spillage. According to him, the study, which covered the country’s 550 kilometres of coastline, helped in determining the ecological diversity, the brisk economic activities along the coast, which is densely populated with important cities, revealed the country was at risk and risk zones were determined.

He said these findings led to national contingency plans being mapped out among stakeholder institutions, such as the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and the EPA among others.

He said it was recognized that in times of a spill, it was not the magnitude of the spill that was problematic but the management aspect of it.

“For example if you did not know the resources that are much vulnerable to the oil spill, and then you go in to respond, you may end up damaging the environment, more than leaving the crude, which by nature could evaporate by itself over time,” he revealed.

He said Ghana’s identification of its resource risk areas, is crucial for determining how spillage at any particular point would impact on the environment and therefore how it ought to be contained or dealt with. Responding to suggestions that since there had not been any practical experience in dealing with oil spillage, Mr. Agbenor-Efunam said response comes when there is a disaster and as no one wished for a disaster, it was important to engage in exercises or learn from occurrences elsewhere.

Stressing on the importance of regular exercises, he said knowing what to do and who to call in the event of a disaster are very critical.

“It does not matter what kind of experience you have had in oil spill; every single spill is quite different; even if you had a spill in the past and you managed it the next one could be different and would require different responses,” he asserted.

The private sector is also involved in the combat readiness, possibility of two private companies with logistics ready for deployment are being looked at, whiles a bill currently before Parliament would also strengthen the country’s readiness.

He said local capacity building was ongoing, currently focusing on Western, Central, Greater Accra and Volta regions, especially under a five-year assistance from the Norwegians, which has emergency preparedness as a key component, together with support from the World Bank, under its Oil and Gas Capacity Building Project.

It was revealed also that there are complexities as far as the determination of maritime boundaries in the Gulf of Guinea are concerned and ECOWAS states have made representation to the United Nations to work together in overcoming them in a harmonious manner.

On his part, Phil Wahwerit, EHS Manager of Tullow Ghana Limited said the company has an elaborate oil spill solutions, with onshore and offshore components.

He highlighted oil spill response capabilities that included 100% onshore redundancy of offshore equipment and continuous offshore deployment exercises as well as both onshore and near-shore exercises.

He indicated that even though it is an offence to enter the exclusion zone around rigs, which is 500 metres from FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, some fishermen still flouted the law, cautioning that it exposed themselves and the rig to danger. He said the Jubilee Operators have equipment and trained staff with the capacity to deploy them in the event of an oil spillage and that 76 sensitivity areas have been identified.

The session on environment, which was chaired by Jonathan Allotey, Director of the Centre for Sustainability, Environment and Planning, focused on areas such as positioning Ghana as an oil spill response hub for the sub region, the importance of establishing local partnerships between oil industries and national authorities in charge of oil spill preparedness.

Other areas covered were, regional agreements, promoting exchange and mutual assistance for oil spill response; the protection, management and development of marine and coastal environment of Ghana.

Other speakers were Lawrence Apaalse, lead Petroleum Geologist at GNPC and also Co-ordinator, Ghana National Continental Shelf Delineation Project, and Capt. Inusah, who represented the Director-General of the GMA, Issaka Peter Azuma.

[The print version of this article was first published in The Business Analyst of Wednesday, April 4th – Tuesday, April 10th 2012] - E-mail:thebusinessanalystgh@gmail.com