THE Chief Executive Officer of Kosmos Energy, Mr. James C. Musselman, has announced that Ghana will begin drawing significant quantities of crude oil from the fields off Cape Three Points next year. He, however, did not say in what quantities the initial draw would be but stressed that, "we know it will be many barrels. We have intensified our efforts and we are very optimistic that this is going to happen latest by the middle of next year". Mr Musselman made the announcement at a meeting with media men in Accra on Wednesday February 20, 2008, and said there was still some work to be done on the reservoir. "It is our goal to get this because of the work ahead. It is a large reservoir and we need to get early draws to know more about the reservoirs," he added. Late last year Kosmos Energy struck oil in the deep waters of Ghana off Cape Three Points in the Western Region. Using one of the latest drills in the business, named the "Belford Dolphin", the company drilled its first well, the Mahogany Well 1, at approximately 165,900 feet and discovered crude oil, which is said to be within the range of the best quality. The news keeps alive Ghana's dream of becoming an oil hub in Africa as efforts to achieve that have already received a further boost with the investment of US$100 million by the" company to drill and evaluate two additional wells by the end of the first quarter of the year. The company is expected to drill a total of six wells by the end of the year. Mr Musselman, who sounded very optimistic, said the nature of the reservoir was such that the company needed to be cautious by proceeding in a manner that would not harm it. He said the nature of the well gave indications that it could be drilled for up to 30 years, adding that all efforts needed to be made to ensure that ''we maximise the benefits from it". Another oil rig, Songa Saturn, arrived in the territorial waters of Ghana in mid November last year to drill a second well to pave the way for the commercial production of oil in Ghana. The rig is expected to be in the deep waters off Cape Three Points in the Western Region, where the well is to be drilled. Songa Saturn, which arrived from Equatorial Guinea, is a deepwater floating drilling rig and it is expected to leave for Libya after a three-month expedition in Ghana. On the crucial question of how many barrels of crude oil there were in the deep waters of Ghana, Mr Musselman said, "We need to drill between 700 and 800 wells to be able to hit the numbers being called." Some have put the number of barrels at between 500 million and 1.2 billion but the President of Kosmos stated categorically that "we do not know that yet, but from the discovery and the tests done so far, the company cannot doubt the figures". Source: Daily Graphic