Energy Minister, Dr Matthew Opoku Prempeh
Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh has urged West African oil-producing countries to team up in ensuring best practices in the sector are adhered to.
According to him, this was necessary to derive maximum benefits associated with oil and gas resources in the sub-region.
Making his submission at the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, United States, Opoku Prempeh highlighted that these best practices when shared and adhered to will enable member countries to advance through valuable exchange of experiences.
He stressed that nearly half of member countries in West Africa are endowed with rich oil and gas resources yet they lacked the requisite capacity for exploitation without seeking assistance from foreign firms.
“In Ghana, for instance, our first oil field – the Saltpond Field, was discovered by an American company, Signal-Amoco Consortium in the 1970s and several years later, two American Companies – Kosmos Energy, Anardarko and their partners discovered Ghana’s most prolific world class oil at Jubilee Field and subsequently the TEN Field in a separate contract area,” he explained.
He cited the case of Nigeria where oil company, Shell had long commenced drilling for oil before the first discovery in 1956.