Accra, June 8, GNA - The Ministry of Energy on Wednesday said oil and gas have been discovered in the offshore Tano Basin and North, South and West Tano fields by prospecting companies in conjunction with the Ghana National Petroleum Company (GNPC). It said a Norwegian company has just concluded that the fields contain gas reserves that could be commercially exploited and that the "Ghana-Norwegian process is happily on course"

A statement signed by Mr S.O. Barnor, Acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Energy, said "in recent years GNPC has accelerated its activities in the discovered fields by intensified collaboration with international oil and gas companies and a number of development partners have been undertaking studies to evaluate commercial viability of the discovered fields." The discoveries had earlier been considered marginal and not commercially viable by the companies involved and, therefore, have not been developed.

It said other companies are also evaluating the fields for further commercial viability and when all evaluations were done and bids proposed, "GNPC shall make a determination and shall enter into relevant agreements."