Energy Strategist and Lead Consultant to Chamber of Petroleum Consumers-Ghana (COPEC), Dr Yusif Suleman, has lashed out at the Petroleum Commission for failing to sanction some 14 independent companies who have failed to explore and produce oil in the country after an agreement with the Government.

Between the period 2006 and 2019, the Ministry of Energy signed 18 different Petroleum Agreements with independent companies to explore and produce oil but only four oil blocks out of the 18 are currently responsible for the country’s 194,000 barrels of oil per day.

Dr Suleman in an interview with Class Business, therefore, implored the Petroleum Commission to enforce the laws governing oil exploration.

He said: “The problem, partly, is coming from our regulators - Petroleum Commission. What the Petroleum Commission needs to do is that before they give out the block to any potential bidder, they have to make sure that they have two things. First, the state-of-art technology to do the exploration...

“Number two, they need to have the technical know-how and the financial muscle to be able to do that otherwise if we keep leasing out blocks, people will keep it down and they will now start to look for people to sell it out to, which is not the best.

“So what Petroleum Commission needs to do is that they just need to work with the word and letter of their Commission requirements with respect to oil blocks. Then they do that and put punitive measures on people who unnecessarily hold on to blocks that they don't explore because that is not good for our energy security”.