OGR July - August Edition 2020

COUNTRY REPORT
Ghana Looks to Enter a New Era in Upstream Sector as
Government Urges Springfield, Eni to Sign Unitization Agreement
F
ollowing study of technical
evidence from Springfield E&P
(SEP)’s West Cape Three Points 2
(WCTP2) License and Eni’s Offshore
Cape Three Points (OCTP) License
offshore Ghana, the Government of
Ghana has declared earlier this year that
the Afina-1x Cenomanian reservoir and
the Sankofa Cenomanian reservoir are
“one and the same”. This conclusion calls
for a Unitization Agreement between
both operators in order to develop the
reservoir that straddles both of their
blocks.
This Unitization Agreement of the Afina
and Sankofa Fields was requested by
Minister of Energy, Hon. John-Peter
Amewu, in a letter sent to SEP and Eni in
early April 2020. The government’s
direction then requested unitization talks
to be completed within 120 days (four
months). Shall both parties fail to comply
with the government’s directive to agree
on a Unitization Agreement, the Minister
of Energy is empowered to stipulate the terms
and conditions of such an agreement per
Regulation 50(6) of L.I. 2359. Both operators
have until August 2020 to complete their
negotiations.
According to Africa Energy Chamber, The
Unitization Agreement will be the first
between an International Oil Company and a
Ghanaian operator in the country, ushering a
new era for Ghana’s upstream sector. The
conclusion of such an agreement would
ensure efficient reservoir exploitation, avoid
unnecessary competitive drilling and
maximize economic recovery of the
hydrocarbons reserves from both licenses.
SEP is a majority interest holder (84%) and
operator of the WCTP2 License, with the
Ghana National Petroleum Corporation and its
exploration company, EXPLORCO, holding
the remaining interest. SEP drilled the Afina-1
well in October 2019, making two gas and light
sweet oil discoveries at a water depth of 1,030
Evy Maffini
Glacier makes
appointment in
Norway to grow
local business
meters, and consequently more than doubling its
proven oil reserves to 1.5 billion barrels and
adding 0.7Tcf of gas.
On the other side, Sankofa is a part of the Enioperated
OCTP Block, where Eni holds a 44.44%
interest, Vitol 35.56 %, and GNPC 20%. The
OCTP Block is reported to have reserves of about
40 billion cubic metres of unassociated gas and
500 million barrels of oil, and has been producing
since 2017 from the John Agyekum Kufuor FPSO.
Equatorial Guinea Award Contracts for Development of Africa’s
First Offshore Gas Mega Hub
Equatorial Guinea continues to lead
the development of natural gas
production and monetization in the
Gulf of Guinea, with the award of a new
contract for a new Gas Master Plan to
support the ongoing development of its
offshore Gas Mega Hub.
In collaboration with Marathon Oil Corp
and EG LNG, the Ministry of Mines and
Hydrocarbons (MMH) awarded a contract
for the development of a Gas Master Plan
to British company Gas Strategies on
Tuesday. The work is part of the
development of Equatorial Guinea’s Gas
Mega Hub, for which Definitive
Agreements towards the monetization of
the Alen unit were signed in April 2019.
The offshore gas mega hub will be the first
such venture offshore Africa and aims at
pooling stranded gas across the Gulf of
G u i n e a b y m a x i m i z i n g e x i s t i n g
infrastructure at Punta Europa.
from the Alba Field, declining output
requires to gather gas from additional fields
and reserves in the region.
H.E. Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, Minister
of Mines and Hydrocarbons, said:
“Equatorial Guinea has given natural gas a
priority in terms of development and
monetization, and we believe gas is the key
to industrialization and jobs creation. With
key initiatives such as LNG2Africa, the
ongoing offshore Gas Mega Hub and the
Year of Investment 2020, we are going to
complete key gas projects in upstream,
midstream and downstream that will further
d i v e r s i f y o u r e c o n o m y , p r o v i d e
opportunities for our local companies, and
create jobs for our citizens”
Under the development, Punta Europa is set
to become a gas processing center for all
stranded gas fields in the Gulf of Guinea, and
could open up economical avenues to
monetize offshore gas in Cameroon and
Nigeria as well.
The new Gas Master Plan represents an
important step towards the realization of
this vision, and will help in accelerating and
coordinating offshore gas developments,
which could eventually lead to the
construction of additional liquefaction
capacity on Punta Europa.
While key facilities there, such as EG LNG
and Marathon’s methanol plant, have
traditionally been relying on gas feedstock
H.E. Gabriel Mbaga
Obiang Lima
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OIL AND GAS REPUBLIC I SPECIAL EDITION