ACCRA, Tullow Oil Limited operating two of Ghana’s producing oil fields will start engagements with the government of Ghana on further developing its Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) field, a release by the Britain-based explorer said.
It said with the ruling of the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) out of the way, drilling will resume around the end of the year, which will allow production from the TEN fields to start to increase toward a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) design capacity of 80,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd).
“The new maritime boundary as determined by the tribunal does not affect the TEN fields as per the map,” the release said. “Tullow will now work with the government of Ghana to put in place the necessary permits to allow the restart of development drilling in the TEN fields.”
In its final ruling in the three-year-old case, ITLOS ordered a re-demarcation of the maritime boundary between Ghana and its western neighbor, Ivory Coast, setting out new coordinates for the re-demarcation.
Experts see this ruling as more favorable to Ghana since the tribunal upheld Ghana’s argument of adoption of equidistance method of delimitation of maritime boundary between it and Cote d’Ivoire while rejecting Cote d’Ivoire’s bisector line method of delimitation.
“Tullow looks forward to continuing to work constructively with the governments of both Ghana and CAte d’Ivoire following the conclusion of this process, Tullow CEO Paul McDade said. “While the TEN fields have performed well during the period of the drilling moratorium, we can now restart work on the additional drilling planned as part of the TEN fields’ plan of development and take the fields towards their full potential.”
The tribunal also rejected the Ivorian claim that Ghana had infringed its sovereign boundary in oil exploration within the disputed zone.
Meanwhile, in a joint statement issued soon after the ruling, both countries agreed to abide by the decision, state-run Ghana News Agency reported.
At a joint press conference, the attorney general of Ghana, Gloria Afua Akuffo, and Ivory Coast’s Minister of Petroleum, Energy and Development Thierry Tanoh read out the joint release in English and French respectively.
“On the joint behalf of the Presidents and the Peoples of the Republic of Cote d’Ivoire and the Republic of Ghana, we would like to express our gratitude to the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea for the courteous attention with which the proceedings were conducted,” the officials said.
Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK
