News:
January 16, 2019
The Minority National Democratic Congress (NDC) caucus in Parliament has expressed surprise at the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP) of its attempt at deceiving the Ghanaian populace of making a new 550 million barrels discoveries of oil by Aker Energy.
According to the minority in a statement the discoveries were rather made between 2011 and 2013 by Hess as the explorer under the erstwhile NDC government.
The minority stated that, what Aker Energy did since 2018 after taking over from Hess was to conduct drilling Appraisal wells based on Hess’s acquired data to determine the commercial nature of the discoveries that were made in 2012 and 2013.
The press release issued by Ranking Member on the Mines and Energy Committee, Adams Mutawakilu provides details of the work done by Hess under the former regime to counter the claim by government.
“The exploration period for the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Point Block was seven (7) years. As such, the exploration license expired on 18th July 2013.
During the exploration period, the Operator (Hess) had acquired a total of 300 Sq. Km of Seismic data, drilled eight (8) Exploratory wells and made seven (7) successive discoveries; Five (5) for oil and two (2) for gas between 2011 and 2013. This translates into about 87.5% success rate of discovery,” the Minority clarified.
The NDC said government’s actions and inaction following the oil find have rather resulted in a loss of opportunity for the country to earn money.
The release further questioned the whereabouts of $47 million approved by Parliament, and its subsequent transfer to the Ghana National Petroleum Company to purchase a 10% share of Hess Ghana in 2015.
The Minority also provided details of the discoveries with name of Well and date of discovery as indicated below:
Paradise 16th May, 2012, Hickory North 8th Jun, 2012, Beech 3rd Sep, 2012, Almond 11th Oct, 2012, Pecan 6th Dec, 2012, Cob 22nd Jan, 2013 and Pecan North 18th Feb, 2013.
Aside Paradise and Hickory North which carried gas, the rest are oil discoveries.
Aker Energy however announced that its oil exploration in the deepwater Cape Three Points since last year showed that its Pecan4A well in the block could be holding some 450 to 550 million barrels of oil.
The Pecan field is approximately 166 kilometres southwest of Takoradi in Ghana, to a vertical depth of 4,870 meters in 2,667 meters of water, containing seven discoveries.
This however did not go down well with the minority, hence the response.
Christian Kpesese/ghanamps.com