Woke up this morning to a headline that was so misleading – Akuffo Addo turns on valve to commemorate first oil from Jubilee South East Area.
Let the world understand that this is not a new oil field but simply part of a phased development from the Greater jubilee field.
It is noteworthy to establish the point that President Akufo Addo in his seven years of being in power, has not added a single new producing field to Ghana’s three oil fields ; namely the Jubilee, TEN, and OCTP (Sankofa and Gye Nyame fields) which were developed by the NDC government during President Mills/ Mahama era.
It’s instructive to note that the Jubilee South East Project is not a new producing field but rather came about as a result of several discoveries made by Tullow Oil (the operator) alongside its joint venture partners between 2007 and 2012 in their west cape three point block(WCTP).
However, due to the phased development approach agreed upon between the government and the Jubilee partners, not all of these discoveries were included in the initial Phase 1 development.
Some of the discoveries were not added to the first Jubilee Field Development.
The Jubilee South East (JSE) production well which has now been brought on stream is part of the oil and gas reservoirs encountered by wells such as Mahogany 3, Mahogany 4 (which were drilled between 2009 and 2011), and Mahogany Deep-2. The partners have just drilled injectors and oil producers into key reservoirs to maintain and optimize oil production.
The current oil production from the JSE is not occasioned by any new government discovery of the Akufo-Addo-Bawumia- led government.
There are additional undeveloped reserves within the Greater Jubilee Field, which the jubilee partners have been granted approval to drill.
President Akuffo Addo had a golden opportunity to join the late President Mills and President Mahama in adding a fourth oil-producing field if his government had not botched the Aker development.