Ghana has been advised to maximise the potential of the Afina and Sankofa fields if the country is to see an improvement in the upstream sector.

According to the Institute for Energy Security (IES), the success of the country’s oil and gas sector is heavily dependent on the level of unitisation of the two fields.

This forms part of a research conducted by the IES which revealed that “the country is likely to miss a huge opportunity to rake in billions of Dollars from the upstream petroleum sector.”

IES' projection stems from the delay on the part of Eni Ghana Exploration and Production Limited (ENI) and Springfield E&P (Springfield) to cooperate, to unitise the Afina and Sankofa fields.

The unitisation, according to the IES’s research, will lead to “maximum economic benefits for the State, and for all the parties involved in the production of the unitized accumulation.”

"These benefits would be derived from, amongst others, sharing of development facilities, which naturally drives down costs and ultimately improve economic returns. The benefits to the State are in the form of significant reduction in operational and capital costs of the unitized fields, as well as increases in royalties, taxes, Additional Oil Entitlement (AOE), fees and levies," a statement from IES explained.

The study also sees the delay "in signing the Unitization and Unit Operating Agreement (UUOA) to complete the unitization" as a lost chance which could have helped the country "reap maximum benefits from its petroleum resources."

The purpose of executing the UUOA is to give full effect to Government’s directive to unitize, and the subsequent imposition of terms and conditions for the unitization of the Afina discovery in the West Cape Three Points (WCTP2) and the Sankofa field in the offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) contract areas, according to IES.