The Reserves and Production Trends of Ghana’s Petroleum Resources

Abstract

Fossil fuels consumption has been a major source of energy in the past three decades. Globally, this accounts for over 80% of the primary energy mix. Ghana has huge hydrocarbon reserves. These reserves include fields such as the Saltpond field currently planned for decommissioning, Jubilee, Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN), and the Sankofa-Gye Nyame (SGN) fields. The dwindling rate of these fields over the years has become a great concern. This work has therefore collated various data on the exploration and production of Ghana’s oil and gas activities for easy analysis and evaluation. By extension, it also analyses the sector’s outlook. Secondary data from energy and petroleum related establishments was gathered for the study. The review considered the exploration and production trends of Ghana’s upstream oil and gas activities from 1896 to date. It also considered Ghana’s position towards the global energy transition. The information gathered were statistically analyses. It was therefore established that the total hydrocarbon value of the four oil and gas fields (Saltpond, Jubilee, TEN and SGN) could be estimated at 1.4 Bbbl of oil, 1.7 Tscf of condensates and 922.9 Bscf of natural gas. Ghana’s first active oil field, Saltpond field, was estimated to have produced a total of 20 million barrels of oil since its production from 1978 to 2015. The field per existing data still holds more than 10 million barrels of oil plus condensates and natural gas. The projected remaining oil reserve at the end of 2021 for combined Jubilee, TEN and SGN stood at 846 MMbbl representing about 62% of the initial oil in place. Associated gas stood at 672 Bscf (representing about 60% of the original gas in place) and non-Associated gas recording 1.2 Tscf representing about 86% of original gas in place. Considering the average rate of production over the years for each field, it is estimated that it would take about 9.6 years (at a rate of 28,592 Mbbl/year) to totally drain the remaining recoverable oil reserves of the Jubilee field, 8.2 years (at a rate of 16,904 Mbbl/year) for the TEN field and 32.2 years (at a rate of 13,443 Mbbl/year) for the SGN. Considering the current rate of total oil reserve draining (about 8% per annum), it is estimated that it would take about 15.3 years to drain the current national oil reserves. This urgently calls for pragmatic measures to replace and or grow the reserves to remain relevant as an oil production nation to meet the projected energy transition plan of the country.