PIAC Holds Workshop On Oil Production

The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) will today commence a two-day workshop on finding solutions to the declining crude oil production in the country.

Hosted by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) the Technical Consultative Workshop’ brings together about 300 local and international experts.

The participants will be drawn from PIAC’s membership and staff, Petroleum Commission (PC), Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Ghana National Gas Limited Company (GNGLC), government officials and policy makers, representatives from international oil and gas companies in the country, international industry experts in Norway, Libya, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Indonesia and local industry experts and consultants, civil society groups, academia and researchers, and the media.

The Chairperson of PIAC, Emerita Professor Elizabeth Ardayfio-Schandorf in an interview said the engagement  aims at providing a comprehensive  technical platform for stakeholders to have meaningful discussions and develop actionable solutions to the declining crude oil production in the country.

She said the workshop is expected to provide an overview of the current oil production landscape in Ghana, identify the technical and regulatory challenges resulting in the decline of production, provide and discuss innovative solutions and strategies to enhance production and bolster collaboration among key stakeholders to reverse the decline and maximise production for economic benefit.

Information available to the Daily Guide shows that Ghana’s  upstream  oil and gas sector has played a key role in economic development since the commencement of commercial production on the Jubilee  Field in 2010 and this is reflected in the industry’s  increasing  contribution to total government  revenue  since 2010, contributing an average of eight percent over the last five years.

“The coming on stream of the Tweneboa, Enyenra, and Ntomme (TEN) Fields in 2016 and the Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN) Fields in 2017, further propelled this growth with more revenues being accrued to support economic development,” PIAC said.

It explained that over the last four years, however, crude oil production has been on the declining trend, sparking concerns about the future of the upstream petroleum sector, if the technical challenges on the producing fields are not addressed and additionally, no new fields are developed and/or investments attracted, in the context of the threat posed by the global energy transition.

PIAC said as an account  watchdog over the management and use of petroleum  revenues, has reiterated its concern over the declining trend of crude oil production in its latest 2023 Annual Report on the management and use of petroleum  revenues.

The Report said total crude oil production from Ghana’s three producing fields has declined since 2019.  It states that more than 71.4 million barrels of crude oil was produced in 2019, representing peak crude volumes since commercial crude oil production in Ghana.

“Since then, production has been on a downward trend, with 66.9 million barrels produced in 2020 and 55.2 million barrels in 2021. Production further declined to 51.7 million barrels in 2022 and 48.25 million barrels in 2023,” it said.

PIAC indicated that per its analysis, the average decline over the four-year period ( from 2020 to 2023) stood at about 10 percent saying that this trend poses serious economic and strategic planning challenges, impacting negatively on revenue generation,  energy security, and overall economic  stability, if not halted.

It named some of the factors contributing to the decline to include technical challenges, maturing producing fields, and the lack of new investments.

Source:dailyguidenetwork.com