High interest greets Ghana’s first licensing round – Amewu discloses

Energy Minister, John Peter Amewu

Energy Minister John Peter Amewu has indicated there is high interest in Ghana’s maiden licensing round so far.

President Akufo-Addo launched the country’s first oil and gas exploration Licensing Round for six blocks, last month ranging in size from 1,000 square kilometres which are in the highly prospective Western Basin.

According to Mr. Amewu, there has been a great deal of interest from both national and international oil companies.

Two of the blocks are ultra-deep-water, at 3,000m+ and they carry 2D and 3D seismic data from the period of 2000–2013.

Blocks 2, 3 and 4 are open for bidding and deepwater blocks 5 and 6 are to be allocated through direct negotiations.

“One of the challenges that can befall a producing country is when your licensing round fails when it is not well patronized. We need to get it right and done properly”, he told Joy Business after the opening ceremony of the Africa Oil Week in Cape Town, South Africa.

Exclusion Road Show

Ghana will be hosting exclusive roadshow and bidding round highlighting licensing and investment opportunities to global operators and investors who have gathered at the conference.

International oil companies with interest are expected to make submissions by end of November while local companies will be pre-qualified for participation in December 2018.

“This gathering presents a marketing opportunity. Taking into consideration the prospective nature of the blocks and how fast Ghana has developed from an oil field to an oil industry in twelve years, for us we will continue to market what we have’, the minister remarked.

Mr. Amewu said the ministry was poised to make this licensing round the most successful ever in Africa.

Supporting the Ministry of Energy is a representation from the Petroleum Commission lead by the Chief Executive, Egbert Faibille Jnr, who addressed a Prospect Forum as part of the roadshow at the Africa Oil Week.

Africa Oil Week

Africa’s governments, national oil companies, investors, licensing agencies and corporate oil/gas players are attending the 25th edition of the Africa Oil Week conference.

This event is aimed at shaping the continent’s upstream oil and gas strategy and provides the most-trusted content and networking platform worldwide on Africa’s hydrocarbon industry.

It is the leading business intelligence and transaction platform for Africa’s oil and gas sector