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A 30/70 joint venture deal between Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) and Technip brings together under one roof, the two organisations in a strategic alliance that will ensure greater benefit from the country’s ‘Black Gold’-Oil.
In a relationship that would culminate in a 51% to 49% in favour of GNPC in seven years, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye, Chief Executive Officer of GNPC says the relationship is “in fulfillment of the company’s strategies of forming strong alliances with the best in the industry,” and central to GNPC’s new approach to playing a lead role in the exploitation of the country’s oil and gas resources.
At an event to seal the deal last week, the GNPC Boss was confident that the JV, known as GNPC-Technip Engineering Company partnership would be able to develop the technical capacity and expertise of Ghana’s talented graduates.
Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye signed the shareholders agreement and regulations of the JV on behalf of the GNPC while the Chairman and CEO of Technip, Thierry Pilenko signed for Technip.
For Thierry Pilenko, the deal fits into his company’s strategy of a long-term relationship in which the company works towards building strong national oil company participation in exploiting its resource, citing Brazil and Malaysia as examples.
Mr. Pilenko sees a lot of potential in the joint JV, and recalled the company’s first investment in seismic data acquisition in Ghana in the West Cape Three Points (WCTP) block prior to the major oil discovery in Ghana, which brought a new thinking to the region.
He said recruiting people from diverse backgrounds for the JV was to create a new thinking, and “to give to all recruits the same opportunity to grow.”
He said the objective to recruit develop and retain people, not just to do business as usual but with the right ambition, is to ultimately develop a strong national talent to meet the demands of the supply chain.
For Mr. Ato Ahwoi, Board Chairman of GNPC, unlike other companies which still rely on external sources for basic products the national oil company has the opportunity, through the joint venture, “to be able to design, construct and manufacture Christmas trees and flexible pipes.”
He said with CNOOC, Sinopec and CNTC having been able to do it in 40 years, Ghana did not have to re-invent the wheel.
He was hopeful that “Ghana would be the first country in Africa to design, manufacture and sell some of the products of the oil industry to other African countries.
Mr. Ahwoi challenged young recruits from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and to make this happen.He expressed the hope that Ghanaians would be exposed to learning the actual engineering work, to enable the country set up its own manufacturing plants.
In a speech read on his behalf, Dr. Joe Oteng-Adjei, the Minister of Energy, said the JV, which has been reached after two years of discussions, would promote value-addition to the country through knowledge transfer and on-the-job training.He congratulated Technip for its continuous support to young graduates of KNUST and sees the JV as being in line with the country’s objective of maximizing benefits from oil resources through active participation. He said the JV, set up to provide service to the country’s oil and gas sector as well as boost local capacity in the industry, is one of the many steps to ensure that GNPC is supported to be a “cash cow” to support Ghana’s accelerated economic growth.
He said there was the need to sustain investment to increase and maintain oil and gas production to boost the petroleum reserves from the new discoveries that have been announced.
“The needed capital for these projects cannot be wholly funded from internal sources”. Dr Oteng-Adjei added, saying government was going to resource the national oil company to pursue these objectives.
He acknowledged many scholarships that Technip has given to Ghanaians and envisaged that other institutions and agencies would enter into such partnerships as they position themselves to maximize benefits to the country.
He commended those who worked tirelessly around the clock to make the JV a reality.
Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, Deputy Minister for Energy (Power), who represented the sector Minister, inaugurated the joint venture company and its offices.
Present at the event were a former Minister of Energy and also of Finance, Mr. Kwame Peprah, top management and staff of GNPC and Technip as well as other industry executives, including Jubilee Operator and President of Tullow Ghana Limited, Dai Jones, Mrs. Alexandria Amoako-Mensah and Kyeretwie Opoku, both Board Members of GNPC.
Also present were representatives of the Petroleum Commission, Ghana National Gas Company (Ghana Gas), and Kosmos Energy as well as representatives of Tap Oil, Challenger Minerals, Afex International and Service providers such Schlumberger, among others.
Ministry of Energy
