President John Mahama has revealed that global oil giant Shell has submitted an offer to participate in Ghana’s Pecan Oil Field project, marking a significant step toward advancing the country’s oil and gas sector.

According to the president, stakeholders are currently reviewing Shell’s proposal as they await a formal response that could trigger the next phase of development for the offshore field.

He disclosed during a courtesy call by the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), led by Chairman Constantine Kudzedzi.

President Mahama also confirmed that he has held separate meetings with existing project partners, the African Finance Corporation and Lukoil, to discuss progress and the path forward.

He described the Pecan Oil Field, located in the Deepwater Tano/Cape Three Points block, as “one of the major game changers” for Ghana’s energy sector.

“If we can move that forward, it will be good for our oil and gas production,” he said.

“In the next three or four years, if we can bring that well on stream, it will significantly improve production.”

The president noted that the oil sector had previously suffered a loss of investor confidence but said his administration has worked hard to rebuild trust.

“We met the sector in quite a deep crisis. There was disillusionment amongst all the investors in the sector,” he said.

“Our first focus was to reassure them and build confidence again in Ghana’s prospects with regard to the upstream.”

He pointed to progress with companies like Eni, which has resumed investment in the Sankofa oil fields and adjoining compartments.

“As you can see, Eni is back with the bank, and they are devoting more resources to expanding production in Sankofa,” he added.

President Mahama further emphasised the need to invest Ghana’s oil revenues in meaningful infrastructure development through his proposed Big Push initiative, a $10 billion programme targeting roads, bridges, education, health, and agriculture over five years.

“We decided that Ghana has a major infrastructure deficit,” he said. “So we said we’ll implement the Big Push, which will be a $2 billion-a-year investment in infrastructure for five years.”

He said the plan would be funded through the Annual Budget Funding Amount (ABFA) from oil revenues and complemented by mineral royalties, particularly from gold.

President Mahama assured the PIAC that all funds under the programme would be tracked and spent transparently.

“One of the major things would be disaggregating the revenues so that we can track,” he explained. “If the responsibility for all natural resources were put on PIAC, then it would make it easier to monitor.”

He concluded by stating: “We need to get the Minister to disaggregate it properly so that we know exactly what you are monitoring.”