Page 9 - AfrOil Week 32 2021

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GHANA
THE Ghanaian Parliament’s Joint Committee of Finance and Mines and Energy has responded positively to the government’s request for per- mission to take out more than $1bn worth of loans to fund offshore oil and gas projects.
According to local press reports, the com- mittee’s members said at the weekend that they would recommend that Parliament approve Accra’s plan to borrow money for this purpose. They wrote in a report on the government’s request that they favoured the plan to use loans to acquire stakes in two offshore sites and to pay a share of development costs at another site.
In the report, the committee members noted that the government’s plan would involve borrowing up to $1.45bn on behalf of Ghana
National Petroleum Corp. (GNPC). This sum, they said, will include $350mn to cover GNPC’s portion of capital expenditures at the Pecan offshore oilfield and no more than $1.1bn for the purchase of 70% of the South Deep Water Tano (SDWT) block and 37% of the Deep Water Tano/Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block by GNPC’s offshore arm EXPLORCO.
To date, work at SDWT has been led by AGM Petroleum Ghana Ltd, a local company that is now slated to be bought out by EXPLORCO. DWT/CTP, by contrast, is operated by Nor- way’s Aker Energy, and the GNPC subsidiary is looking to buy the stake formerly assigned to ExxonMobil (US), which recently announced plans to exit Ghana.
Liberia is a good test case for this strategy, he added, because it did not attract any concrete expressions of interest for the bids included in the licensing round, which was launched around the time that the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic began seriously disrupting the world economy.
The government has changed its approach by offering to engage in direct negotiations for the blocks but is still waiting for investors to move forward in the face of concerns about risk and financing, he said.
Donmo acknowledged that TGS might be criticised for conflicts of interest if it were a partner in drilling projects as well as the holder of seismic data. Nevertheless, he said, Liberia cannot afford to leave hydrocarbon resources untapped, especially since there is a limited amount of time left for development, in light
of plans for transition to renewable energy sources.-
“At least if we know we have oil, the govern- ment can say let’s keep it for future generations. But now, we don’t know,” he remarked. “And if we don’t produce oil in the next 30 years, we don’t know what the world might be. It may be that whatever is below ground might just have to stay underground.”
He also said he hoped that TGS’ optimism would help spark potential investors’ interest in the Harper basin. The fact that the holder of seis- mic data is confident enough to invest in explo- ration drilling should substantially de-risk the blocks, he said.
As of press time, Donmo’s statements could not be confirmed. TGS has not said whether it intends to expand its operations in Liberia to encompass drilling. ™
Committee recommends approval of Ghanaian government’s loan plan
Ghana hopes to borrow $350mn to cover obligations related to the Pecan project (Image: Aker Energy)
Week 32 11•August•2021 w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m P9