Tullow Oil plc (Tullow) says it will work with the government to put in place the necessary permits to allow the restart of development drilling in the TEN fields. 

Tullow expects to resume drilling around the end of the year which will allow production from the TEN fields to start to increase towards the FPSO design capacity of 80,000 bopd.

The oil company's statement is in response to the Special Chamber of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg's ruling Saturday with regards to the maritime boundary dispute between Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire.

According to ITLOS, the new maritime boundary as determined by the tribunal does not affect the TEN fields.  

The tribunal accepted that the equidistance measurement be used and according to Petroleum Economist, the new boundary line determined the Tribunal “does not materially affect Ghana’s interest.”

Currently, three oil fields, the Tweneboa, Enyira and Ntome (TEN) oil fields are located in the area and formed the subject matter of the maritime dispute between the two countries.

Ivory Coast was claiming it had rights to the area where Ghana has been undertaking some hydrocarbon activities.

An elated CEO of Tullow Paul McDade said, “Tullow looks forward to continuing to work constructively with the Governments of both Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire following the conclusion of this process." 

"While the TEN fields have performed well during the period of the drilling moratorium, we can now restart work on the additional drilling planned as part of the TEN fields’ plan of development and take the fields towards their full potential,” he added.