Expectations that Ghana’s planned 2026 drilling campaign in the Voltaian Basin will reverse the country’s steep oil production decline are highly unrealistic, the Africa Sustainable Energy Centre (ASEC) has cautioned.
Speaking to Business and Financial Times, Justice Ohene-Akoto, Executive Director at ASEC, described the Voltaian Basin (VB) as a long-term strategic undertaking that cannot meaningfully influence the acute production downturn within the next five years.
The first well scheduled for October 2026 will be a stratigraphic well, not a production well. Even with a commercial discovery, frontier basin timelines mean first oil cannot arrive before 2033 to 2036. The crisis is unfolding now, between 2025 and 2028, and the basin simply cannot reverse the trend within that window, he explained.
Ghana’s oil production has declined for five consecutive years. Output dropped from a peak of 71.44 million barrels in 2019 to 48.25 million barrels in 2024. Mature fields including Jubilee, Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN), and Sankofa-Gye Nyame are experiencing accelerated depletion. Production for the first half of 2025 has fallen 26 percent from the comparable period last year.
The fiscal impact has been severe. Ghana experienced a 56 percent decline in petroleum revenue during the first half of 2025, creating a fiscal shock that threatens essential public expenditures and undermines macroeconomic stability.
ASEC recommends prioritising near-term stabilisation through the West Cape Three Points Block 2 (WCTP2) while tightening governance at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). WCTP2, with over 1.5 billion barrels of oil and up to 1.2 trillion cubic feet of gas, represents Ghana’s best chance of delivering production between 2028 and 2032.
Ohene-Akoto warned that GNPC’s ambition to assume greater operating responsibility faces significant institutional and financial risks. The biggest risk to the basin and WCTP2 is governance failure, he stated. GNPC has systematically breached the Petroleum Revenue Management Act (PRMA) by retaining over US$488.7 million that should have gone into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
The corporation diverted nearly half of US$768.35 million into unapproved Level B activities, cited in the Auditor-General’s report. These diversions, including payments such as GH¢4.9 million for a golf club house, directly undermine core upstream projects. GNPC must restore governance integrity before it expands its upstream footprint, he said.
The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) is considering legal action over the matter. PIAC maintains that all oil proceeds, whether direct or indirect, must be paid into the PHF. GNPC argues that Explorco’s proceeds do not fall under the category of revenues required to be paid into the fund.
Operationally, GNPC Explorco is not yet technically prepared for deepwater operatorship, evidenced by the corporation’s need to rely on a technically strong deepwater partner in the proposed WCTP2 structure.
Despite his caution, Ohene-Akoto emphasised the basin’s strategic importance for securing the country’s long-term hydrocarbon future. The basin is indispensable for post-2035 resource replacement. It is Ghana’s long-term anchor and a critical platform for developing GNPC’s operatorship capability. What it is not is a short-term revenue solution, he explained.
Government messaging portraying the basin as an imminent game changer risks creating false expectations, even though its long-term value is unquestionable.
ASEC strongly endorsed government’s proposed state-led intervention in WCTP2, describing it as the most strategically important near-term measure available to the state. If we do nothing, the asset risks remaining idle at the worst possible moment for national revenues, Ohene-Akoto said.
He stressed that the intervention must be executed with unparalleled transparency. A full independent valuation, commercial audit and technical assessment must be published before any acquisition. Anything short of that will chill the investment climate and expose the state to reputational risk, he cautioned.
ASEC has outlined three priority actions for government. First, strict institutional and financial accountability, including an immediate transfer of the US$488.8 million owed to the PHF, full adherence to GNPC’s approved budgets, an end to all unapproved expenditure and strengthened oversight to restore the corporation’s credibility.
The second recommendation centres on transparency in the WCTP2 transaction. ASEC is calling for full public disclosure of the valuation, cost audit and technical due diligence findings, as well as assurances that any acquisition meets stringent commercial and technical criteria.
The final recommendation urges government to clarify and ring-fence GNPC’s operatorship pathway. This includes designating the Voltaian Basin as a structured training ground for GNPC Explorco, ensuring WCTP2 is developed with a world-class deepwater operator and protecting capital allocated to the basin from political interference and unrealistic execution timelines.
Ohene-Akoto concluded that the state’s ability to navigate this period will depend not on geology but discipline. We have the assets. What we lack is accountability and sequencing. If Ghana gets the governance right, WCTP2 can stabilise the present and the Voltaian Basin can secure the future.