Business News of Friday, 12 October 2018

Source: Eric Gyetuah

Oil and Gas: Oil lifting from Tullow Ghana to GNPC accrued to USD2.5 billion in 2017

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Tullow Ghana Limited, operators of Jubilee and TEN Oil Fields has been sharing highlights of their contribution to the growth of the Ghanaian economy.

Since its operation in 2006 in Ghana, in offshore oil exploration and production, the company has made tremendous impact in support the country’s fiscal and economic growth.

Director of External Affairs and Social Performance with Tullow Ghana Limited, Ms. Cynthia Lumor at a press engagement yesterday in Takoradi indicated that oil liftings to GNPC in the same year accrued to USD 2.5 billion.

She explained further that a total of USD 938 million, as at December 2017, was paid to government in terms of royalties.

She added that Tullow Ghana alone paid in total an amount of USD 845 million as taxes to the state.

Ms. Lumor intimated that Tullow and its partners have save the Ghanaian government an amount ranging from 1.7 billion to 2.4 billion dollars from the supply of foundation gas to the Ghana Gas Company Limited.

“One of the benefits is the fact the 200 billion cubic feet of gas that is being supplied to Ghana Gas, are at no cost to government of Ghana. So when we look at 200 bcf for gas, the crude oil that you will need to generate that amount of gas, the value it depending on what price you are using is between 1.7 billion and 2.4 billion”, she explained.

Cynthia Lumor disclosed that Tullow Ghana has awarded a wholesome amount of USD15.1 billion worth of contracts to other companies in the oil and gas sector.

Out of this, Ms. Lumor clarified that 5.6 billion worth of contracts has been awarded to foreign companies, 8 billion to joint venture partnerships between foreign and local companies, and a total of 1.5 billion worth of contracts awarded indigenous Ghanaian companies as part of their compliance and effort to improve local participation in the oil and gas industry.

She justified that “given how relatively new this industry is and the fact that we are still learning as a country, we are still growing the industry as a country, not everything can be supplied by Ghanaian companies”.

Currently, five out of the eight, representing 63% of the leadership team with Tullow Ghana, are Ghanaians. Mrs Lumor indicated that the company is much committed at growing competencies locally, stressing “the company as at 2017 had a 74 percent Ghanaian representation of the total number of employees”. This number she added is growing steadily by the year.

She noted that “there’s a lot of training that we are doing both for our employees as well as externally.

Ms. Lumor reported that Tullow Ghana has spent in total about 30 billion dollars, between 2011 and 2017, in various forms of social –economic projects in the country. She contends that a cumulative amount of 17 billion dollars worth of investments accounts for the impact that Tullow Ghana has made in the local economy.

This, she maintained excludes the benefits associated with the training of the local people and their multiplying effects on the Ghanaian people.

She was thankful to Tullow and its partners, and the Government of Ghana for their collaboration in realizing this success.

“The truth is that we haven’t done any of these by ourselves. We’ve talked a lot about the Jubilee and TEN partners but Government of Ghana has played an instrumental role because without their collaboration and cooperation there wouldn’t be a lot that we have done”, she said.