Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills is set to press the button for the first oil well at offshore the Jubilee Oil Field on Wednesday and officially declare that Ghana is among the oil producing countries in the world.
Minister for Energy Joseph Obteng Adjei described the occasion as the beginning of economic emancipation for Ghanaians who had been dreaming for the day when Ghana could development its oil industry for the benefit of the people.
In an exclusive interview with Xinhua here on Sunday, the minister said that there had been a mutual respect and understanding between the stakeholders in the oil and gas sector especially with Ghana's partners in the jubilee field, including Tullow, Kosmos, Anadako, Sabar, EO group and Ghana national petroleum company (GNPC).
"We have always worked in the context of the law and the petroleum agreement," he said, but he quickly added "so far we've negotiated hard. I believe that as partners they want to make sure that they maximize the benefit of the oil discovery to their shareholders and we, as a government, have the obligation to make sure that we also negotiate well to maximize the benefit to our people."
"So in the contest, we have managed to negotiate in the spirit of a win-win and that is why by Wednesday, all of us, the partners, the people of Ghana and those of us in the government, will declare that day as the beginning of our formal commercial oil production," he said.
The Jubilee Oil and Gas Field was found in 2007 by Kosmos Energy of the United States off the Ghana coast, boarding Cote D' Ivoire, with an estimated reserve between 650 million and 1.2 billion barrels.
Contrary to the high expectation of many Ghanaians, oil production would start with only 5,000 and 8,000 barrels per day due to technical impediments and the lack of infrastructure but could gradually reach to 120,000 barrels a day by next April, Adjei said.
The 120,000 barrel daily production was the peak and would be remained for about three years before additional wells entering production in the phase two of the Jubilee Oil Field few years after and the completion certain infrastructural projects, the minister elaborated.
He echoed the budget report presented to the parliament by the Minister for Finance and Economic Development Kwabena last month that annual oil revenue was estimated at 400 to 500 million U. S. dollars, representing only 1.9 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or 6 percent of the estimated annual revenue in 2011.
In another hand, oil industry itself did not employ a lot of people, it was the additional value to the oil products which could create jobs, he added.
The government has been trying to use the gas and other natural resources like salt, bauxite, lime etc. to create "a very viable" aluminum industry.
Earlier this month, Adjei restarted the state-owned Volta Aluminum Company (VALCO) at the port city of Tema, 30 km east of here, which was established in the 1960s and stopped production for decades due to the shortage of power and the drastic fall of aluminum price at the international market.
"In the light of our oil and gas find, Ghana can now aggressively pursue the potential for a competitive alumina industry through refining the country's bauxite reserves," he said during his visit to VALCO on Dec. 6.
He explained that Ghana would no longer export the raw bauxite because it could only sell for 25 dollars per ton while aluminum was now 2,500 dollars a ton.
The minister emphasized the need to expand infrastructural development if the country were to create another economic growth pole with the emerging oil industry.
"We have to open the roads so that people who would want to go to that part (the western oil industrial area) to work can easily go there, we have to make sure electricity is available for the subsequent companies that would operate there, we have to ensure that there is enough water, rail and other infrastructure," he said.
On economic cooperation with other countries, Adjei reiterated that Ghana was ready to cooperate with all countries, including China, Japan, the United States, Britain, South Korea, India and South Africa, which could help it reach the Better Ghana Agenda, a promise by president mills during his presidential campaign in 2008.
The minister assured foreign companies that Ghana was capable to pay for all the projects undertaken by them because Ghana has gold, the price of which has been increasing, cocoa, the price of which is very stable, alumina, bauxite and lime, among others.
He disclosed that there was a disrespectful suggestion on the sanctions against those who were the enemies of the United States during negotiations on the oil production agreement with foreign companies.
"We are a sovereign country and we don't intend to sell our birthrights, I know that elsewhere the people who did it have apologized to the people of Ghana. But we didn't expect them to get as far as telling us who should get into our waters," he said.
The minister asked the oil companies which sent their vessels to Jubilee to follow the rules and procedures, "irrespective of where they come from, we do not care".
