The Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), has asked the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to double up efforts at recovering loans given to government and its agencies.

According to PIAC, the GNPC has an outstanding loan and guarantees amounting to US$126.68million out of an accumulated total of US$318.09 million owed it by government and its agencies since 2011.

In its 2023 Annual Report on Petroleum Revenue Management, PIAC indicated that, "a total of US$1.23billion is owed the Corporation as at the end of December 2023 due to additional payments and guarantees made by the Corporation."

In view of this, GNPC has been cautioned to discontinue granting loans and guarantees until significant recoveries are made with respect to outstanding loans.

"GNPC needs to intensify its efforts to recover these loans and desist from issuing guarantees to SOEs. The Committee reiterates that the government should desist from taking loans from the Corporation," part of the report read.

Meanwhile, crude oil production in Ghana declined for the fourth consecutive year in 2023.

This is according to the Public Interest and Accountability Committee report for 2023.

According to the report, the reduction was "from a high of 71.44 million barrels in 2019 to 48.25 million barrels in 2023."

This represents an annual average decline of 9.2%.

Of the 48 million barrels, 63% came from the Jubilee Fields, 23% from SGN and 14% from TEN.

"For the year 2023, a total of 48,247,036.61 barrels (bbls) was produced from the three producing fields; Jubilee – 30,444,217 bbls (63%); TEN - 6,716,278 bbls (14%) and SGN 11,086,541.61 bbls (23%)."

For raw gas, a total of 255,171.97 MMSCF was produced in 2023 from the SGN Field (127,203.02 MMSCF, 50%), Jubilee (77,900.05 MMSCF, 30%) and TEN Fields (50,068.90 MMSCF, 20%). The average achieved price by the Ghana Group for all three (3) producing fields during the period under review was US$78.067/bbl.

On the back of this, the Committee recommended that government and the relevant regulatory bodies should take the appropriate steps to reverse production decline in existing fields and ensure investments in unexploited fields.

The 2023 Annual Report is in fulfilment of PIAC’s obligation under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act, 2011 (Act 815), as amended by Act 893, to publish Semi Annual and Annual Reports.