Govt should consider reinvesting into the oil funds – Energy Expert

Following the government’s plans to allocate about US$283 million to the Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) for its Equity Financing Cost in the 2021 fiscal year, industry players have hinted that the money should rather be reinvested in the oil fines of the country.

Presenting the 2021 Budget statement the Majority leader in Parliament Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu noted that a projected Petroleum Revenue for 2021 will amount to US$885.7 million.

“The total petroleum revenue is made up of Royalties (US$201.0 million), Carried and Participating Interest (US$524.9 million), Corporate Income Tax (US$158.5 million) and Surface Rentals (US$1.30 million),” he said.

But speaking to GhanaWeb, Dr Yussif Sulemana, a Petrochemical Engineer and an Energy Expert, advised the monies should rather be invested in Ghana National Petroleum Commission (GNPC) and make it a standalone operator.

“This money will have two major uses, one of it is to take care of the participatory and the carry on interest, remember within our field GNPC is not the operator, Tullow and the rest are the operators and so we only have a participatory interest as a form of equity so part of this money will be used to pay our part of the rights because in Ghana we are operating what we call the profit sharing or the production sharing module which means that all parties that are involved they will have some kind of equity that they are going to bring onto the table,” he said.

He further explained that “some of these monies will channel to pay our part of that and it will be paid to the operator that is the players. I will suggest that we plough a lot of it back to reinvesting in our oil fines. We have a lot of potentials within the onshore and I believe GNPC has already started doing major activities on that and when the money is used judiciously it could become a standalone operator.”

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