Poverty levels in Ghana will worsen and the plight of the poor will deteriorate if the country's per capita income is not increased to about 1,000 dollars, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, Minister of Energy, said in Accra on Tuesday.

He said Ghana's per capita income, which had been hovering around 300 to 400 dollars was not ideal and "until the country moves beyond this mark, we would not be able to achieve the millennium development goals set out by the United Nations".

Dr Nduom was addressing the opening session of a three-day management seminar on the petroleum sector in Accra.

The seminar, aimed at developing applicable techniques and attitudes of petroleum management, has the theme, "The Petroleum Sector in National Development".

It was organized jointly by the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC) and the Norwegian International Programme for Petroleum Management and Administration (PETRAD). Participants are from the GNPC, the Ministries of Energy, Finance and Economic Planning, Energy Commission, Attorney General's Department, the Ghana Navy, Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority.

The Sector Minister singled out the energy sector as one of the areas that was poised to become a net exporter of energy and petroleum in the next five years, adding, "this was an exercise that would lift the per capita income to the desired 1,000 dollars."

"The petroleum sector is the one to help Ghana break out of the 300 to 400 dollars per capita income to 1,000 Dollars. We are very optimistic that this goal can be achieved. Ghana has a deficit because it is importing power from Cote d'Ivoire and the hydro sources have not proved to be as effective as in the previous years", he said.

Dr Nduom said the West African Gas Pipeline Project, the Aboadze Thermal Energy Project as well as the Volta River Authority's retrofit works, when completed, would ensure that Ghana does not import energy but generate enough for domestic needs and for export.

Additionally, he said the ministry was exploring the development of the Bui dam as well as the Tano Gas fields to harness the gas for domestic use in a cost effective manner.

Dr Nduom said the challenge however, was that, some companies in Ghana that had shown interest in oil and gas exploration in the country did not have the right financial backing and the significant expertise in this field.

He said even if Ghana did not strike oil in commercial quantities, it could harness the expertise gathered by Ghanaians at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and build a second refinery in the Western region to produce refined petroleum products for the sub-region.

"Even if we don't find gas and oil, we can use our experience to make the petroleum sector an integral part of national development," he said. In a speech read for him, Mr Stephen Sekyere-Abankwa, the GNPC Board Chairman, said the petroleum industry was the world's biggest and most pervasive business.

He said Ghana's situation today was that, it spent a substantial amount of its foreign exchange earnings on the importation of petroleum and its by-products when there was every indication that the country had enormous potential petroleum resources.

Mr Sekyere-Abankwa said, to realize this huge potential and develop the industry to play the required role in national development, there was the need to develop the right policies, legal and fiscal framework.

He said it was in this regard that the GNPC and the sector ministry had embarked on the review of the fiscal and regulatory regime of the country in order to attract the needed investment into the industry.