GOIL seeks partner for DW/CTP project

Ghana’s state-controlled oil marketing concern has started looking for a new partner in the Deepwater Cape Three Points (DW/CTP) project.

Alex Adzew, the COO of Ghana Oil (GOIL), said last week that his company hoped to team up with another firm because it was committed to moving forward with exploration work at DW/CTP. Even though ExxonMobil (US) has decided not to proceed, GOIL aims to find another partner that is willing to absorb the risk, he said at the company’s annual general meeting (AGM).

“With such activities, you do the seismic [survey] and interpret the data, but there’s a risk that every company will put in such explorations. ExxonMobil felt that there was no need to drill further to find oil because the risk on this particular [project] is high,” Adzew said.

“What we have done as a company is to continue to explore and look for partners who will [join] us,” he added.

He also declared that he did not expect the US super-major’s exit from DW/CTP to deter future investments in Ghana’s oil sector.

ExxonMobil announced its decision to quit the project earlier this year in a letter to the Ghanaian government. In the letter, the US giant said it was giving up its majority stake in and operatorship of DW/CTP after fulfilling its contractual obligations during the initial exploration period of the project. Sources cited by Bloomberg said in May that the company had made this decision after processing around 2,200 square km of 3D seismic data collected from the block and without drilling exploration wells. (The company had licensed the data from a multi-client seismic survey conducted in Ghana’s offshore zone.)

The US giant had held an 80% equity stake in DW/CTP, while the remaining equity was split between Ghana National Petroleum Corp. (GNPC), with 15%, and GOIL’s subsidiary GOIL Offshore, with 5%. It won the right to negotiate an exploration contract for the block in 2018 and finalised an agreement with GNPC and GOIL Offshore the following year. That agreement covers a 1,482-square km licence area located in water ranging from 1,550 metres to 2,850 metres deep.

DW/CTP is 92 km from the Ghanaian coast and is adjacent to the Deepwater Tano/Cape Three Points (DWT/CTP) block operated by Norway’s Aker Energy, as well as the Offshore Cape Three Points (O/CTP) and Offshore Cape Three Points South (O/CTPS) blocks operated by Italy’s Eni.