Local firms in the oil and gas sector operating independently or in joint ventureships received contracts worth a total of US$960 million in the first quarter of 2016, the Petroleum Commission has disclosed.

This represents an increase of 55% over last year’s figure of US$620 million during the same period.

ENI Ghana has also awarded a US$1.75 billion out of a total spending of US$6.2 billion to indigenous companies.

This compares favourably with the over US$1billion contracts awarded to indigenous companies between 2010 and 2015.

As at the end of June this year, contracts issued to indigenous Ghanaian service providers were in excess of US$221million, representing a rise of about 73 compared to US$128 million in the same period in 2015.

"I applaud the Petroleum Commission for pursuing aggressively localization of workforce in the industry. Currently, about 80% of the workforce in the industry are Ghanaians," Mr. Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, Petroleum Minister said at the launch of 2016 Local Content Conference and Exhibition in Takoradi.

It was on the theme: "increasing in-country value and capabilities of domestic businesses."

The most exciting trend, the minister noted, is that Ghanaians are increasingly dominating managerial and core technical positions in the industry.

"Aside the promulgation of the Local Content Regulations (L.I.2204), government continues to develop a number of regulations to ensure efficient conduct of upstream operations to make the country conducive for business activities and the attraction of huge foreign direct investment to develop the industry."

Mr. Buah mentioned access to credit at favourable terms and competitive interest rate as bottlenecks for Ghanaian small and medium enterprises in the sector.

The funding constraints, he said, hinder the ability of SMEs to bid for medium to large scale contracts in the industry in which the average contract sum is in the range of between $50million and $100million.

Government, he assured, is keen on putting in place the requisite measures to ensure that competent Ghanaians are given first preference in the area of employment in the industry.

The ministry, he further noted, will work assiduously with the Petroleum Commission to ensure that the funding modalities for capacity development are completed to support technical universities to enhance their capacities in the fields of petroleum engineering, geology, geophysics and supply chain in-country.

He implored the petroleum commission to fast track the completion of the university collaboration project to bring the syllables of academic institutions up to date and enhance the teaching and research capacities of relevant faculties in the area of petro-technical and petro-business.

"I am told that the Local Content Committee is reviewing some guidelines for adoption; these are research and development, training and skill development, upstream procurement as well as technology skill transfer plan."

All these interventions, he explained, are to ensure that government’s vision of developing local capabilities and businesses through education, skills transfer and expertise development are achieved.

"We want to position our local businesses to be more competitive and also partner foreign companies in-country to deliver efficient services in the industry," he said.

According to the Petroleum Ministry, the upstream sector has created approximately 7000 jobs, out of which 5,590 are Ghanaians.

About 474 companies are said to be registered with the Petroleum Commission, out of which 351 are indigenous companies, whilst 46 are joint venture companies.