This is expected to serve as a major boost for the country’s oil sector as it would improve the daily production levels of the Jubilee field which would in turn help the government to achieve its 2019 oil production target of 71.57 million barrels.

There were two shutdowns of the FPSO at Jubilee filed in 2018 as part of the turret remediation project which resulted in a decrease in oil production on the field.

The field recorded 20.59 million barrels of oil, compared to 24.30 million barrels in 2017, representing a reduction of 15 per cent.

With the field expected to be operational by the first quarter of the year, the government is forecasting 32.84 million barrels in 2019.

This was contained in the committee’s report on the 2019 annual budget estimates of the Ministry of Energy.

Other oil fields

On how the other oil fields performed in 2018, the committee noted that the TEN field produced a total of 17.53 million barrels of oil in the first three quarters of 2018 with a daily average production of 64,213 barrels which was higher than the planned daily average of 63,659 bopd.

Associated gas produced from the TEN filed in the same period was 28,685 MMscf, out of which 17,163 MMscf was re injected, 2,755 MMscf utilised on the FPSO for power generation, 756.46 MMscf flared and 8,010 MMscf delivered to the Atuabo Gas to substitute the Jubilee foundation gas volumes export during the shut-down.

The Sankofa Gye Nyame field also produced 6.89 million barrels of oil and 14.668 MMscf of gas, equivalent to 25,038 bopd and 53.73 MMscf per day for oil and gas respectively.

Ministry’s allocation

The Ministry of Energy was allocated a total amount of GH¢500.96 million to implement its programmes and activities for the 2019 financial year.

Out of this amount, GH¢19.77 million and GH¢27.85 million, representing 3.9 per cent and 5.6 per cent have been earmarked for compensation and goods and services respectively.

An amount of GH¢453.33 million, representing 90.5 per cent has been earmarked for capital projects.

Reliance on development partners

While commending the ministry for deciding to spend a greater part of its allocation on capital projects, the committee ,however, raised concerns on the over reliance on development partners.

Out of the ministry’s total allocation of GH¢500.96 million, an amount of GH¢338.59 million, representing 67.6 per cent is expected to be sourced from development partners.

The committee indicated that sourcing funds from development partners to implement energy sector programmes was unreliable.

In 2018, out of the GH¢764.85 million which was expected to be sourced from development partners, only 12.6 per cent of the funds was released.

The committee noted that it finds this trend worrying because of its negative impact on the attainment of policy targets of the ministry and accordingly urged the Ministry of Finance to identify more reliable funding avenues to support the ministry.