Legislation for on-shore exploration crucial – Expert

The General Manager in charge of Sustainability at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Dr. Kwame Baah-Nuakoh has called for the enforcement of needed regulations, prior to the completion of ongoing on-shore prospecting in the Voltaian Basin.

Currently, the prospecting of the basin which covers approximately 104,000Km² or 40 percent of Ghana’s land mass for oil is estimated at 70 percent complete.

In an interview with Goldstreet Business, Dr. Baah-Nuakoh said “the on-shore Voltaian Basin survey is currently on-going and we are about 70 percent done with work”.

According to him, current analysis suggests the Basin holds a lot of potential and “at this stage, we should be thinking about legislation, so that when the President announces the discovery, we would already have the legislations that protect activities to ensure Ghanaians get large benefits as against what is happening off-shore, because of the huge capital requirement.”

He stated that the lower capital requirement can afford a lot more Ghanaians the opportunity to be part of this industry, adding that this also has its own environmental challenges.

Almost all existing laws governing the oil and gas exploration sector in Ghana are related to off-shore activities.

Decommissioning of Oil Rigs

“The decommissioning of oil rigs is a vast opportunity for us to create an industry hub that will serve the West African sub region,” said Dr. Baah-Nuakoh, adding, “we are using the Saltpond decommissioning project as the learning curve to see how we can establish Ghana as a hub.”

He stated that Ghana is well positioned to take advantage of this across West Africa.