Ghana is set to respond to Cote d’Ivoire’s counter petition on the ongoing maritime boundary dispute that could disrupt oil exploration activities at shared borders of the two countries.

Chief Executive of the Petroleum Commission, Theophilus Ahwereng, is optimistic Ghana will secure a favourable ruling at the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in the Hague.

Ivory Coast is seeking to nullify the maritime boundary which Ghana argues has been recognised by both parties for more than four decades.

“In the next few weeks, Ghana will be submitting its response to the Ivorian counter memorial and I think it is going pretty well,” Mr Ahwireng told Journalists recently.

He adds, “Ghana submitted its memorial. Ivory Coast, a couple of months ago, submitted its counter-memorial. We have gone through the process, in the last few months, of responding to the counter-memorial, and I am pleased to say that we are on track.”

Ghana’s neighbour has prayed the ITLOS to stop Ghana from any oil exploration, development or production activities throughout the newly disputed area, until the court gives its judgment on the merits of the case, which is expected in 2017.

Cote d’Ivoire’s argument has been that oil concessions awarded by Ghana in the Deep water Tano Block, mainly the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) fields, extend across a new “equidistance” line it has determined to be the boundary separating the territorial waters of the two countries.

As such, Cote d'Ivoire claims that some of the oil fields in the TEN area straddle the boundary such that if Ghana were to exploit them even from its own waters it would inevitably extract oil from the Ivorian side.

Ghana has countered that both countries have officially recognized the existing equidistance line as separating the territorial waters of the two countries, and have both gone on to grant concessions to the same concessionaire – Tullow Oil – in their respective halves of the area based on the existing boundary.

Ghana also argues that some $4.5 billion has already been sunk into the project, hence stopping the project cripple the complex network of parties involved.

The ITLOS last in April last year gave an interim ruling that Ghana could continue developing offshore projects in the disputed area, but imposed a ban on new drilling.

TEN is expected to produce about 300 million barrels of oil equivalent over its approximately 20-year lifespan, 80 percent of which is oil and 20 percent being gas, Tullow indicates. The field will produce 80,000 barrels of oil per day when it reaches full production.