APAALSE - Paper - Caris

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Introduction Ghana signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on Dec 10 th 1982 and ratified it on March 20, 1983. In 1986 Ghana incorporated the UNCLOS provisions into domestic legislation and declared the continental shelf co-extending with the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) and so pegged its outermost limits at 200 nautical miles (M) from the Territorial Sea Baseline (TSB). With the coming into force of the Scientific and Technical Guidelines of the Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (CLCS), it became apparent that Ghana could make a submission for the extension of the continental shelf beyond 200 M. This conviction was further motivated by the International Seabed Authority’s (ISA) report of 2000 which indicated that Ghana has an Extended Legal Continental Shelf (ELCS) potential of 8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. It is important to state that, while this desktop study was carried out by Robert van de poll of Fugro Pelagos, it has undergone dramatic transformations, including reviews by Prof. Karl Hinz, a retired Commissioner of the CLCS, Dr. Galo Carrera and Dr. Larry Awosika, both sitting Commissioner, and Dr. Lindsay Parson of Southampton Oceanography Centre, UK. Establishment of the Ghana National Continental Shelf Delineation Project (GNCSDP) In August 2006, the Minister of Lands, Forestry and Mines, put in place a National Continental Shelf Advisory Committee (NCSAC) to oversee to all aspects of the extension of the continental shelf of Ghana. Membership was drawn from a variety of stakeholders including the academia, research institutions and maritime agencies. Guided by the Scientific and Technical Guidelines and the Rules of Procedure of the CLCS, the Advisory Committee drew up a comprehensive plan that would see Ghana undertake a desktop study for the preparation of a submission for the extension of the continental shelf of Ghana. Consequently, the GNCSDP was commissioned on August 30 th 2007, along with the formation of three standing Committees; the Ministerial Oversight Committee (MOC), the Steering Committee (SC) and the Technical Core Group. The MOC is made up of Ministers from the Ministry of Education, Science & Sports, Ministry of Lands, Forestry & Mines, Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration & NEPAD (New Partnership for Africa Development), Ministry of Justice & Attorney General Department, Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning, Ministry of National Security, and a representative of H. E. the President of the Republic of Ghana. The Steering Committee and the Technical Core Group are made up of representatives from the Geological Survey Department, Survey Department, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Ministry of Justice & Attorney General Department, Ministry of Lands, Forestry & Mines, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Regional Integration & NEPAD, Ministry of Finance & Economic Planning, Regional Maritime University and the University of Ghana. Desktop study (DTS) The delineation of the continental shelf of any coastal State beyond 200 nautical miles and the subsequent preparation of a submission involves several stages of scientific, legal and diplomatic 2
work. The preliminary stage which normally involves scanning and desktop study is the subject of this paper. The preliminary assessment of data and metadata necessary for the DTS of the Ghana continental shelf project was carried out by the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (GEUS), in consultation with NCSAC, in March 2007, using mainly seismic data supplied by the national oil company (GNPC). The seismic, which was scanned in Kingdom Suite, revealed that the FOS could only be located in selected areas, thus identifying some data gaps (Figure 1). The Project later received a report prepared by Robert van de Poll, of Fugro Pelagos Inc. under the NEPAD sponsored African Shelf Project, initiated by Senegal and the Council for Geoscience of South Africa (CGS) using <strong>Caris</strong> Lots and public domain datasets. This assessment includes an earlier report (Report No. 2003-0233) on preliminary continental shelf assessment of coastal African States by Dr. S. Perritt in which Ghana was quoted as having the potential to an Extended Legal Continental Shelf of the order of 1,440 km² based on the 1% sediment thickness formula (Figure 2). This report which considered the area of relevance from Sierra Leone to Gabon, assumed normal baselines from the World Vector Shoreline 2 (WVS2) database except for Gabon where straight baselines were applied. The public domain data employed in this report are mainly Digital Chart of the World (DCW), WVS2, 2-minute gridded bathymetry (ETOPO-2) and the NGDC gridded sediment thickness data. At this point, it is essential to mention that no in-house proprietary data were included in this assessment, giving rise to the hope that the extension area could be improved with the inclusion of these datasets. The report also conclusively recommended the Gardiner Line and the 350 nautical miles limit as the optimal formula and constraint lines respectively for Ghana. SEISMIC DATABASE FOS outside existing seismic coverage, more data needed FOS can be determined from existing seismic data in this region and towards the Ivory Coast 9 3
Page 1: LawrenceApaalse ProjectCoordinator,
Page 5 and 6: • A Continental Shelf of up to 20
Page 7 and 8: Figure 5: Russian Nautical Charts (
Page 9 and 10: Figure 8: Diagram detailing the bas
Page 11 and 12: A review of the over 700 2D SEGY li
Page 13 and 14: Figure 12: Results of the Fine Sedi
Page 15 and 16: However, the GNCSDP, desirous to ma
Page 17 and 18: Conclusions and Recommendations The

APAALSE - Paper - Caris

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?