Ghana: Jubilee Produces Over U.S.$41 Million Barrels of Oil

The Jubilee field has produced over 41.3 million barrels of oil (MMBO) from November 28, 2010 to August 31, this year, exporting over 41MMBO during the period. Total Jubilee crude oil stocks as at August 31was 237,914 barrels. The government and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) have also lifted 6.9MMBO, representing 16.85 per cent of total crude oil exported.

From January 2011 to August 2012, a total of 6,919,556 barrels was lifted by the Ghana Group with a total net value of US$ 770,744,733.11. In 2012, a total of 2,989,367 barrels was lifted with a total net value of US$ 326,620,009.43.

The Minister for Energy, Dr Joe Oteng-Agyei, disclosed this when he took his turn at the meet-the-press series in Accra last Thursday to update Ghanaians on the progress made by the National Democratic Congress (NDC) government in the implementation of programmes and projects in the energy sector as outlined in the Ghana Shared Growth and Development Agenda (GSGDA), a medium-term policy framework which seeks to concretise the "Better Ghana Agenda" of the government.

Dr Oteng-Agyei said in order to improve production and extend the production plateau considerably, an addendum to Jubilee Field Phase 1 Plan of Development (Jubilee Phase 1A PoD) was being implemented with the drilling of additional eight wells (made up of five oil producing wells and three water injection wells), and the installation of additional sub-sea facilities. Some of the oil producing wells has been designed as horizontal wells to enhance well productivity.

He said the Phase 1A project was estimated to cost approximately US$1.2 billion and would take a total of 18 months to complete. He revealed that it is expected that three of the five oil production wells and one of the three water injection wells will be drilled, completed and hooked up to the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah by the end of 2012. Recoverable resource estimates within the field remain unchanged. "I am well informed that 3 of the first batch of 5 wells have been drilled to their designed total depth. Other activities such as fabrication of the aforementioned infrastructure are going on smoothly," he said.

The Jubilee field commenced oil production in November 2010 with 25,000 barrels per day (bpd). Production ramped up to October 2011 with an average daily production rate of 80,000 bpd. The field started experiencing pre-mature production decline in November 2011. The field production declined from the October 2011 average daily production rate of 80,000 bpd to about 63,000 bpd at the end of July 2012.

He said the GNPC and the Jubilee Partners have successfully arrested the pre-mature production decline of the Jubilee field and increased daily production rates to 87,000 bpd. This improvement, he noted, is as a result of successful acid stimulation operation performed on five of the nine Jubilee production wells.

Outlining strategies for sustaining petroleum operations, the Energy Minister said participating in oil exploration, development and production come with an obligation to contribute to the costs incurred during the process. "Without these contributions the bulk of revenues that are currently being received would not be earned and there would not be enough and sustained revenue inflow to fund the other needs of the country... There is the need to sustain investments to increase and sustain oil and gas production and continue to add up to petroleum reserves. In this direction the Government will continue to resource GNPC to enable it to meet our existing financial obligations in an efficient manner and to maintain and increase our level of participation in petroleum operations."