Accra, March 27, GNA - President John Evans Atta Mills on Friday asked companies working at the Jubilee Fields to utilise local resources and satisfy local interests for mutual benefits. He reminded the companies of the industrial and legal requirements to use local content and expertise in production and emphasized that, they also had to care about preserving the environment to prevent the oil blessing from becoming a curse.

At separate meetings with delegations from the Irish Company Tullow Oil, and the American Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, at the Castle, Osu, President Mills gave the assurance that Government would continue to co-operate with the oil drilling companies in an open, honest and transparent manner. He, however, served a reminder that Government would ensure that, the oil and gas did not become a curse, through lack of respect for the environment and shady deals.

In June and September 2007, a consortium of companies: Kosmos Energy Ghana (Kosmos), Tullow Ghana Limited, Anadarko Petroleum Group, Sabre Oil and Gas Limited and the E.O. Group, in conjunction with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation announced discoveries of significant quantities of oil and gas offshore deepwater Tano/Cape Three Points Basin, christened the Jubilee Fields.

The Jubilee Fields are believed to hold between 500 million and 1.8 billion barrels of oil equivalent. Under Phase One of the Jubilee Project the companies seek to commence production of oil and gas by mid-2010. This phase involves the drilling of 17 wells, out of which 12 would be used for gas production, three to inject water into the reservoir and two to inject part of the produced gas back into the reservoir to maintain pressure in order to achieve a high level oil recovery.

Also, during Phase One, the daily production of oil would be about 120,000 barrels and about 120 million cubic feet of gas. This could be achieved through sub-sea production installations. Despite the expected benefits of the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities, it had the potential to bring poverty to local people because of the neglect of their needs, triggering local and civil conflicts.

President Mills said investors should be able to get good return on their investment, but the people must also benefit from the activities of the investors. He announced that the Ministry of Energy was embarking on a gas development project. He assured oil companies that Government would ensure that all bottlenecks and drawbacks would be removed for an effective co-operation among all the partners for their mutual benefits.

At the meeting with delegation from Anadarko, President Mills said Government would not condone shady practices in the oil exploration business, but would ensure accountability so that oil exploration would really benefit all stakeholders. He called for the adoption of the best international practices in the business, and underlined that it was necessary that the nation and local people benefited from the transfer of technology.

The Chief Executive Officer of Anadarko, Mr James Hackett, said the Company was happy to be in Ghana because it was on the verge of signing a plan of development for the operations in the field. He said the company had had a wonderful success in terms of exploration in Ghana and it was very positive at advancing its energy sector. The GNPC had been a good partner to work with, he added.

Mr. Hackett registered his company's readiness to be in Ghana for a long time, adding that they were committed to training people to b technically equipped. Mr. Aidan Heavey, Chief Executive Officer and President of Tullow, said Tullow had been in oil exploration in Africa for more than 20 years and was now the biggest partner in the entire Africa. He said Ghana's oil was just about to boom and added that the company would collaborate with the GNPC and Government to strengthen the relationship with one another.