The Senior Vice President in charge of Exploration at Anadarko, Mr Frank Patterson, has described Ghana’s petroleum system as one of the best in the world following its adoption of best practices in the management of its oil resource.
He said Ghana was a “fantastic” oil and gas area for which reason the jubilee partners, Tullow, Anadarko and KOSMOS would continue their exploration activities in the country towards the discovery of more oil.
Anadarko is a leading oil company in Africa.
Addressing delegates at the 19th oil upstream conference in the South African city of Cape Town, Mr Patterson indicated that the jubilee partners would continue to do business in Ghana in particular and Africa at large as he pointed out the good prospects of the continent as far as the new found resource was concerned.
Ghana was used as a reference point at most presentations made by various personalities throughout the conference which ended Saturday.
According to some delegates, that is a pointer to the fact that even though, Ghana discovered oil only a few years ago, it had good economic prospects.
The Conference was organised by Global Pacific & Partners, a leading independent advisory group with unique business model in worldwide petroleum that had been active for more than 25 years in the world of oil and gas business.
It was attended by about 1,500 delegates from across the world including government officials and corporate exhibitors. Mr Patterson said Anadarko had made 13 discoveries since 2010 with a US$13 billion reserve producing in excess of 600,000 barrels of oil a day.
He added that Anadarko had invested US$66.9 billion in Africa this year in the drilling of oil wells and other oil discovery related activities. According to him the company had engrained in its system throughout the world, a consistent approach towards protecting the people and the environment within which it operated.
On its educational programmes the Senior Vice President noted that the company was currently working with the University of Mozambique in sponsoring a basic science course that was aimed at producing engineers, geologists and other relevant professionals to ensure the retention of local talent.
He, among other benefits, enumerated direct and indirect employment, ancillary business development, enhanced global profile and long tern foreign investment as some of the benefits gained by the host countries.
Anadarko, he stated, would focus its attention in the Liberian basin in the next two years after finishing up activities in Ghana.
The Executive Vice President of Shell in charge of Sub-Saharan Africa,Mr Ian Craig, who made a presentation on “Africa in the global energy landscape” said oil production on the continent declined last year owing to the political instability in Libya. However, he said production in the Jubilee field in that same year in Ghana increased, adding that the picture of Ghana looked bright while expressing concern about the failure of some governments to use the resource to improve the life of their people.
“Africa has to compete in a fierce global market as the global gas market is fast changing for which the continent cannot afford to be left behind,” Mr Craig stated. |