Oil exploration to involve Ghanaian firms

Ghana’s private sector will soon be engaged by government in order to get more local firms involved in the exploration of oil at the Jubilee Fields.

This forms part of an “overriding” objective to getting Ghanaians involved in the oil and energy sector.

Pointing this out to officials of Kosmos Energy, Vice President Paa Kwesi Bekoe Amissah-Arthur said government will not compromise on Ghanaians being sidelined in the exploration exercises.

Kosmos Energy, the firm that led the discovery of oil off Ghana’s coast in 2007, had called on the Vice President at the Flagstaff House on Tuesday, June 10.

Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kosmos Energy Andrew Inglis assured Vice President Amissah-Arthur that the company will continue to partner government to support the energy sector.

Kosmos Energy has already invested $3billion in the sector and has projected to expend $2billion more in the coming years.

The Vice President insisted that a local content policy for the oil sector has been formulated, and it is dear to the government.

“We [will] find ways in which we can achieve that objective of getting Ghanaians to participate increasingly in the sector without some of the issues that have been raised.”

A Deputy Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Benjamin Dagadu, expressed optimism by saying that more gas reserves have been projected to be discovered in the area of exploration by Kosmos Energy.

“There are prospects of Ghana hitting extra volumes of gas,” Mr Dagadu mentioned.

He said that can go a long way to solve the intermittent fuel shortages the country faces.