Ghana, seen as an emerging turf for global oil and gas market has seen another UK-listed oil services company, Petrofac Plc, planning to expand its business into the country. A Dow Jones Newswire report says the company also plans to expand into Nigeria and Norway. The CEO of Petrofac, Ayman Asfari was quoted as saying, “We see lots of exciting things in West Africa, in Ghana and Nigeria, which is a difficult environment, but we’re looking at some gas projects there.” Petrofac’s Managing Director of Offshore Engineering Operations, William Dunnett reportedly said “We’re now actively looking at tendering for business there, mature [oil and gas] projects, and sincerely hope we’ll be active there within six months.” Ghana announced the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities in June 2007. Since then, the country has seen the influx of interest groups in the oil and gas sector into the country. One of the leading oil and gas companies with a major stake in the country’s oil sector is another UK company, Tullow Oil. Tullow has a 38% stake in the country’s Jubilee oil field which it says contains about 1.8 billion barrels of oil and has 17 wells. The Jubilee oil fields is also said to be the largest to be discovered in West Africa in the last 10 to 15 years and commercial production of oil is expected to start in June 2010. Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr Kwabena Donkor, had said that under Phase One of the Jubilee Field project, 120,000 barrels of oil and 120,000 million standard cubic feet of dry gas per day would be produced in 2010. Production would be increased to 240,000 barrels of oil and 240,000 million standard cubic feet of gas per day under the second phase of the Jubilee Field project which is expected to commence in 2013. According to him, “the appraisals so far conducted indicate that the Jubilee Field contains expected recoverable reserves of about 800 million barrels of light crude, with an upside potential of about three billion barrels”. The mainstay of Ghana’s economy has been cocoa and gold, until the discovery of oil. Oil is however, expected to be at the top as the country’s major source of earnings when commercial production begins. Source: Ghana Businessnews.com