A photograph of a Goil Fuel pump • CEO of Ghana oil has said the country will soon have about 7 to 8% share of a new contract it will be signing with a potential investor
• He said ExxonMobil’s exit doesn’t mean all investments are gone
• ExxonMobil prior to its exit controlled up to 80% of the country’s oil blocks
The Group Managing Director of Goil, Kwame Osei Prempeh has said that measures are in place to get other new investors to replace ExxonMobil after the US company announced its exit from Ghana’s oil sector about two months ago.
ExxonMobil pulled out of its deep-water oil prospecting operation just two years after Ghana ratified an exploration and production agreement with the company.
The company relinquished the entirety of its stake in the Deep-water Cape Three Points block and resigned as its operator after fulfilling its contractual obligations during the initial exploration period, according to a letter to the government of Ghana.
In an interview with media at Goil’s Annual General Meeting in Accra, Mr Osei-Prempeh said the likelihood of the country getting more shares in the new investment is high.
“Exxon is the largest explorer in the world and the way they assess their risk is different so if Exxon says that they assess the risk and the quantity that they will get is not to their satisfaction, any middle level explorer or oil company will find it suitable. So as at now, GNPC has assured us that people are knocking on their doors so now that Exxon is out that doesn’t mean their investments are gone.
“Indeed what we are even hoping is that, we have already spent money with our dealings with Exxon so if any new partner comes in, our investment with Exxon is going to top-up our 5% so we may even end up getting about 7 or 8% share in the new deal instead of the 5%, we believe it is not going to difficult at all, we are going to get an investor coming in,” he said
Exxon at the time of their exit controlled 80% of the block, with state-owned Ghana National Petroleum Corporation holding 15% and Ghana Oil Company, holding the remaining 5%.
The work done so far included processing about 2,200 square kilometers (850 square miles) of seismic data, but Exxon didn’t drill any exploratory wells. Join our Newsletter