Ghana: Tullow Oil 'looks forward' to restart drilling offshore Ghana after UN tribunal judgement

23 Septembre 2017

ACCRA,  Ghana, September 23 (Infosplusgabon) - Tullow Oil plc said on Saturday that it will work with the government to put in place the necessary permits to allow the restart of development drilling in the TEN fields offshore western Ghana following the judgement of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) that upheld Ghana's maritime boundary with western neighbour Cote d'Ivoire.

Ghanaian media reports say Tullow expects to resume drilling around the end of the year which will allow production from the Tweneboa, Enyira and Ntome (TEN) fields to start to increase towards the FPSO design capacity of 80,000 bpd.

The ITLOS ruling means the new maritime boundary as determined by the tribunal does not affect the TEN fields, according to analysts in Accra.

Cote d'Ivoire was claiming it had rights to the area where Ghana has been undertaking some hydrocarbon activities.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Tullow, Paul McDade, said, “Tullow looks forward to continuing to work constructively with the Governments of both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire following the conclusion of this process."

"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,” he added.

The Special Chamber of ITLOS on Saturday, in a unanimous decision, ruled that Ghana has not violated its boundary with western neighbour Cote d'Ivoire.

Analysts in Accra after ITLOS delivered its judgement in Hamburg, Germany, said the judges rejected Cote d’Ivoire’s argument that Ghana’s coastal lines were unstable.

It also noted that Ghana has not violated Côte d’Ivoire’s sovereign rights with its oil exploration in the disputed basin in question.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/VDC/GABON 2017

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