by Justice Lee Adoboe
TAKORADI, Ghana, July 6 (Xinhua) -- Ghana's third commercial oil field Sankofa-Gye Nyame became operational officially on Thursday as President Nana Akufo-Addo turned the valves for production to commence.
The field, also known as the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP), an integrated oil and gas field, is expected to produce 45,000 barrels of oil per day at its peak while the production of 171 million standard cubic feet of gas per day will commence in 2018.
The president noted that the decision by the partners to invest in the project, in spite of the uncertainties of the global oil industry, had paid off.
"It is evident that we are steadily walking towards the realization of the vision to make Ghana the petroleum hub of West Africa," Akufo-Addo said.
He said the government would employ efficient management of revenue and resources accruing from the petroleum sector to make the desired impact on all Ghanaians.
"We will prudently manage the revenue from our petroleum resources with a long-term perspective ... so that the petroleum sector becomes a significant contributor to financing nationwide industrialization," the president said.
The integrated oil and gas field was discovered by Italian oil giants Eni in 2011 with the Plan of Development (POD) receiving government approval in January 2015, opening the door for the injection of 7.9 billion U.S. dollars into the development.
Claudio Descalzi, Global Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Eni, said the OCTP project was special not just as it was one of the few single fields in the world with both oil and dry gas resources, but also due to the time the project was developed.
"The project was started at a time, three years ago, when many projects were folding up due to the drop in global oil prices. We did it because we believe in the project; we did it because we believe in the country," he said.
The CEO added that the OCTP project was a booster for Ghana, both in the revenue it would bring from oil export and also in electricity generation potential to be unleashed through the use of gas to power electricity.
Eni is the operator of the OCTP block with a 44.44-percent stakes, while Vitol holds 35.56 percent and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) holds 20 percent on behalf of the government.
Economists believe that the ability to generate 1,100 mw of power from domestic gas sources would go a long way to ensure sustainable power supply to propel rapid economic growth.
