Ghana Should 'Use Gas to Develop Industry'
Ghana’s government has been advised to develop its petrochemical and fertiliser sector.
The advice to leverage future natural gas production in this way came from Dr Steve Manteaw, a member of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), a statutory advisory board in Ghana tasked with ensuring the prudent use of the country’s oil and gas revenues.
On the sidelines of a recent workshop on PIAC’s 2016 annual report, he said that developing the gas sector will not only result in increasing electricity but also help improve production of fertilisers, thus stimulating growth in farming, according to a July 14 report by local news publisher Ghana Web.
“More important is the opportunity that gas affords us to undertake petrochemical manufacturing. We can get these various chemicals depending on the compounds of these condensates, that is where you have a lot more urea and ammonia compounds and then it gives you the opportunity to be able to manufacture fertiliser,” he said. PIAC also reiterated the need for the country to boost its negotiating capacity, when dealing with international oil firms.
In particular, Manteaw raised concerns over the price of associated gas negotiated from the Eni-operated OCTP oil development, which he believes are not competitive and could negatively impact the economy. “So, once we have already signed these and therefore cannot alter them, we should relook at the terms of negotiation and not repeat the same mistakes by tying the terms of the contract mostly to our laws and allow the laws to operate,” he said.
ACEP, a Ghanaian non-governmental organisation, has criticised the OCTP gas pricing formula since 2015, but the last government defended it because of the jobs the development would generate and volume of gas it would make available for power generation at lower prices than imported diesel. But in a recent report a UK-based NGO, the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI), said that Ghana is the country that manages its oil and gas resources best in Africa.
Olivier de Souza