The Africa Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) in collaboration with its stakeholders, on Thursday held a forum on the Petroleum Exploration and Production Bill to build consensus among stakeholders.

The forum, which was on the theme: “Contributing to Oil Governance, Getting the Laws Right” aimed at discussing the new Petroleum Exploration and Production Bill, which is currently before parliament.

Mr. Mohammed Amin Adam, Executive Director for ACEP, said there was the need to have a consensus among stakeholders and the best ways in managing Ghana’s oil and gas resources.

“The bill in my view, is a major improvement on the PNDC law 84 which currently governs the exploitation of Ghana’s oil and gas resources”, he added.

Mr. Adam in his presentation said, in Ghana, it is not allowed for companies to be consolidated under common control, however, cost recovery deductions were allowed from one license area against production revenues from another license area by a single company.

He said from a national perspective, this could lead to delays in revenue flows to the State as non-performing licenses will have a toll on performing ones.

He said the new bill had made provisions which could help limit the influence of ministers who often abuse the licensing process, which he termed as ‘open and competitive tender process’.

On the other hand, he expressed worry about the exclusion of provisions on beneficiary ownership information, which provided further risk to undermine transparency.

Mr Isaac Asiamah, Member of Parliament for Atwima Mponia Constituency, said it was important to dialogue on the emerging oil industry even though the introduction of the new bill had been delayed.

He commended ACEP and its stakeholders for this initiative, to deepen the understanding of legislators on issues.