Government has warned companies in the Upstream Petroleum sector who halted operations following uncertainties over the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) case to resume work immediately or have their contracts terminated.
According to the Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr. Mohammed Amin Adam, their idleness denies the country the needed funds for development, hence must return to their various Oil blocks to meet their minimum work obligations.
Speaking at a two-day Local Content and Exhibition Conference in Takoradi, the Deputy Minister cautioned that the “wait and see” attitude adopted by most upstream Petroleum Companies during the three-year-long Ghana/ Côte d’Ivoire maritime dispute must cease following the the ruling on the matter.
“…Now we have a ruling. The ruling is favourable to Ghana; That uncertainty has been removed and so we expect that these companies will go back to work and work hard to meet their minimum work obligations. Some of them were given extension because while they were waiting for the case to be ruled on, their exploration period suffered, and therefore government had to give them extension. But if you have been given extension and you’re still holding the block, you are not on site, then you’re not complying with the terms agreed between the Government of Ghana and those companies.”
The International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) on Saturday, September 23, 2017 unanimously ruled that Ghana did not violate the rights of Cote d’Ivoire in exploring oil at the maritime boundary.
