Business News of Wednesday, 10 March 2010

Source: Dow Jones

Ghana Offshore Oil Finds May Sustain 3 Production Ships

Oil reserves discovered offshore Ghana could be sufficient to one day allow production from three floating production, storage and offloading, or FPSO, vessels, said Tullow Oil PLC Wednesday.

The first FPSO is due to start producing from the 700 million barrel of oil equivalent Jubilee field before the end of this year at a maximum capacity of 120,000 barrels a day, said Tullow's Chief Operating Officer Paul McDade.

The 400 million boe Tweneboa discovery could potentially allow for another FPSO, as could undrilled prospects to the southeast of Jubilee, he said.

Tullow will be able to better clarify the scale of production offshore Ghana later this year following further exploration and appraisal drilling, he said.

Total reserves offshore Ghana could be as high as 4.5 billion boe, Tullow said.