The Ghanaian government has said IMANI’s $30b oil revenue loss claim is false

April 26, 2019 8:24 PM

Ghana’s Energy Minister Peter Amewu has said that it is false claims that Ghana risks losing over $30 billion because the government did not insist on a new arrangement in the biggest oil discovery by Aker Energy in Ghana.

Ghana's Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu

This is coming after a policy thinktank, IMANI Africa indicated that the government may lose over $30 billion to Aker Energy since its licence was not renewed after it expired in 2014.

“The ministry of energy has called this press conference to set the record straight particularly to the extent that IMANI put out a total fabricated false information to educate the good people of this country. IMANI portrayed to Ghanaians that Ghana is losing an amount of 30 billion dollars. This is an untrue story,” Mr Amewu said.

He said that IMANI is misleading Ghanaians with their narrative of the nature of the contract between the government of Ghana and Aker Energy.

He questioned the valuation of the field at $30 billion, arguing that IMANI simply multiplied the assumed price of $65 per barrel by 450 million barrels.

“This exposes the weaknesses in IMANI’s analyses as well as its poor understanding of petroleum economics. The 450 million barrels of oil equivalent are gross contingent resources, which are the potential resource available all of which cannot be recovered under current technology. IMANI wants us to believe that all the 450million barrels of oil equivalent will be produced but fails to explain how that can be.”

“In Ghana, our average crude oil recovery rate is 25%. At this rate, the field value will be estimated at $7.3 billion assuming a price of $65 per barrel. We are working with Aker Energy to enhance oil recovery mechanism to achieve a recovery rate of 40%, which will be the highest in Ghana’s oil and gas history and which occurrence will appreciate the value to $11.7 billion. This will be a significant gain for both Ghana and the partners”.

IMANI Africa said Aker discovered the oil after its exploration licence had expired in 2014 and failed to go through the right processes, thereby making their exploration activities illegal.

IMANI believes the Pecan X and Pecan Y in the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block (DWT/CTP) are essentially not covered by any of the Petroleum Agreements (PA) in force, hence those additional finds require a new Petroleum Agreement to be negotiated under the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, 2016 Act 919.

At a press conference in Accra on Thursday, 25 April 2019, Vice-President of IMANI Africa, Kofi Bentil, questioned why the government has not taken action to secure what is due the country.

“Those two blocks are controlled and owned by Aker. So, it is a curious trend that if it comes to that we don’t seem to pursue our rights and to get the most from our oil,” Mr Bentil said.