On the Road to Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Discovery: Policy Actions and Initiatives

This chapter documents and discusses the policy actions and initiatives, and the results of such actions undertaken by the government of President John Agyekum Kufuor (2001–2009) leading up to Ghana’s first-ever commercial oil find in 2007. Some of these policy actions and initiatives included targeting the right international oil companies (IOCs), reducing block sizes according to water depth and allocated according to the capabilities of the IOCs concerned. Others included shifting the focus to deepwater exploration, Board involvement in Joint Management Committee (JMC) meetings with the IOCs, retooling of GNPC staff and improvement in conditions of service, as well as the regular monitoring of the implementation of the work programmes of the IOCs. The results of these policies and strategies were the signing and award of multiple exploration contracts. For example, from 2001 to 2008, eleven (11) petroleum and exploration agreements covering eleven offshore oil blocks in both Ghana’s shallow and deep waters were executed with IOCs. Also, GNPC’s efforts were rewarded when in June 2007, Kosmos Energy/Anadarko/E.O. Group struck oil and gas in commercial quantities from the Mahogany-I well in deep waters offshore West Cape Three Points Basin. Also, the government of the day convened the first-ever Ghana National Forum on oil and gas development to discuss how to make the oil and gas discovery a blessing for Ghanaians and not a curse. Some of the policies from the National Forum which the then government and subsequent ones adopted included formulating a new petroleum policy and based on the policy, government was expected to revise the Petroleum Act, 1984, decoupling of commercial and regulatory functions of the State in upstream operations, and a new fiscal framework for petroleum revenue management, among others.