Construction works have been completed on 16 out of the 17 wells expected for the first phase commercial oil production scheduled to commence in the country by the last quarter of the year, Nana Boakye Asafu-Adjaye, Chief Executive Officer of Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), has said.

Briefing journalists yesterday in Accra on recent developments in the industry, Nana Asafu-Adjaye said work was progressing steadily on the last well. He gave the assurance that everything was on track for the commercial production of oil in the last quarter of the year at the Jubilee Fields made up of Cape Three Points and Tano Basin.

He explained that a floating, production, storage and offloading vessel was expected in the country from Singapore in May for production to commence.

Meanwhile, subsea equipment required for the production of oil from the Jubilee field have begun arriving in the country. This is a strong indication that the operator of the Jubilee Field, Tullow Ghana Limited, is ready to produce the first oil from the Jubilee Field by the last quarter of this year.

The latest most important equipment vital for oil production known as ‘Christmas Tree’ being manufactured by Spitzer Industries Incorporated is expected to arrive in the country soon.

The ‘Christmas Tree’ will be used in brining oil from the belly of the sea. A statement issued by Tullow Ghana Limited in Accra yesterday after a team of Tullow Ghana officials visited some of the companies in Houston, Texas in the United States contracted by the Jubilee Partners to manufacture equipment needed for production of oil in the Jubilee project.

The companies include MODEC, FMC Technologies, and Spitzer Industries Incorporated. The team also visited the Theodore Spool base in Mobile, Alabama, where the Deep Blue Vessel, framed for spooling oil production pipelines, was being manufactured. Mr Gayheart Mensah, Communications Manager, Tullow Ghana Limited, who was part of the team, said the oil discovery in the Jubilee Field off the coast of Ghana had come with huge expectations among most Ghanaians.

“There are expectations among Ghanaians that the oil find should transform Ghana’s economy and spin off jobs immediately. These are huge expectations that need to be managed,” he said. He expressed confidence that with the level for technology deployed by Tullow Ghana Limited, the operator of the Jubilee Field and the quality of personnel working on the project, the target date of producing first oil by fourth quarter this year would be met.

Tullow has 49.95 per cent, operates the Deepwater Tano licence and is partnered by Kosmos Energy with 18 per cent, Anadarko Petroleum (18 per cent, Sabre Oil and Gas 4.05) and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation GNPC 10 per cent carried interest.