Govt okays GNPC's position • ON Jubilee oilfields

Thursday, December 3, 2009 (Front Page)

THE government has endorsed the stand of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to bid for Kosmos Energy's stake in the Jubilee Oilfields and has, accordingly, contracted Morgan Stanley, a US financial firm, to value Kosmos shares.
Kosmos Energy, one of the partners in the oilfields, has valued its 23.9 per cent stake at the Jubilee fields at $4 billion, with plans to sell it to ExxonMobil. But British Petroleum (BP) and GNPC have both expressed interest in the Kosmos shares.
Reacting to media reports on the Kosmos-Exxon deal and plans to conclude it in January, the Minister of Energy, Dr Joe Oteng-Adjei, said the Government of Ghana was not officially aware of any agreement between Kosmos and Exxon.
In endorsing the GNPC’s bid for the shares, he said the US financial advisory company was currently working in conjunction with the GNPC and other partners in the oil industry to ensure that Ghanaians derived maximum benefit from the oil find.
In an interview with the Daily Graphic, Dr Oteng-Adjei explained that it was the responsibility of the government to ensure that everything was done in a fair and transparent manner for the benefit of all parties in the deal.
He said the government would not approve any irregularity, in apparent reference to Kosmos Energy's breach of the country's petroleum laws by engaging ExxonMobil without the government's knowledge.
He said although executives of Exxon Mobil approached him and President J.E.A. Mills in September during an official trip to the US, the government would only negotiate with them if Kosmos regularised its earlier breaches.
He said it was unfortunate that Kosmos Energy disclosed data on the project to more than 17 companies abroad and pointed out that its behaviour clearly violated the petroleum laws of this country.
The minister said until those issues had been resolved and breaches by Kosmos regularised, the government would not hold discussions with any company which would be introduced by Kosmos.
He stressed that no company could push the government into accepting petroleum agreements which breached the country's laws and expressed regret that Kosmos acted the way it did.
The Jubilee Oilfields are jointly owned by Kosmos Energy, Tullow Oil Ghana Limited, Anardarko Petroleum, Sabre Oil, Ireland, the GNPC and the E.O. Group.
Kosmos Energy's stake has become the target of a keen contest between Exxon and BP, following the decision of Kosmos to sell its one-quarter share in the project to Exxon.
But, according to Dr Oteng-Adjei, "the government believes that the GNPC will get the best value for Ghana if it purchases Kosmos's stake in the Jubilee Oilfields".
He confirmed that the GNPC was well resourced to purchase the fields and further stressed that "the government's supreme interest is to ensure that Ghanaians derived maximum benefit from the country's oil find. It is the government's duty to protect the interest of Ghanaians and we assure Ghanaians that their interest will be protected at all times".
He disclosed that other partners, namely, Tullow Ghana Limited and Anardarko, had assured the government that they had the technical and financial expertise to fully develop the oilfields.
The minister gave the assurance that those issues would not in any way affect the commencement of commercial oil production in the last quarter of 2010.
According to Dr Oteng-Adjei, he visited Singapore recently and the manufacture of the Floating, Production, Offloading and Storage (FPSO) was on course.