SPECIAL REPORT: Ghana due first oil output in 2010 with Jubilee start-up

Tullow Oil PLC will make history when it delivers first oil from Jubilee oil field off Ghana in 2010 through a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel.

Oil exploration in Ghana began in the late 1890s, and there have been numerous oil and gas seeps in the Half Assini area. Until Jubilee, however, no significant discoveries had been made.

The field, discovered last year in 1,500 m of water and estimated with 90% probability to hold 170 million bbl of recoverable oil, straddles the boundary between the West Cape Three Points Block operated by Kosmos Energy and Tullow’s Deepwater Tano Block. Tullow is the field operator.

Jubilee’s ultimate upside potential is estimated to be 1.8 billion bbl. The first appraisal well, Mahogany-2, which reached a TD of 3,443 m on the West Cape Three Points license, targeted Turonian turbidite sandstones and suggests the field is a continuous structure that could be straightforward to develop. Tullow is testing flow rates into July to determine potential production rates and to collect oil samples for analysis. Mahogany-2 will be suspended for use as a potential development well.

The Hyedua-2 and Mahogany-3 wells, which will be drilled later in the year, will test the updip and the southeastern extents of Jubilee.

Moses Boateng, managing director of Ghana National Petroleum Corp., said the FPSO would have a processing capacity of 60,000 b/d of oil and 80 MMscfd of gas with a minimum of 1 million bbl of storage for the first phase of development. Minimum water injection would be 100,000 b/d from the start, and the gas produced would be reinjected or transported to shore for power generation.

GNPC is carrying out a gas-market survey to determine domestic requirements. The FPSO’s capacity could be upgraded to about 120,000 b/d and 170 MMscfd.

Ghana’s politicians have stressed their determination to overcome the economy-distorting “resources curse” as their country becomes an exporter of an as-yet unknown amount of oil.

The government has launched a Gas Oil Forum to gather ideas on how it can regulate and manage its oil discovery to promote economic growth and sustainable development. It has received advice on these issues from the British and Norwegian governments.