President John Mahama on August 18, turned the production valves on the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) FSPO to official commerce production on the field.

But for Tullow Oil, this couldn't have come at a better time looking at the current financial challenges that the company is going through.

The oil company over the past two years has been going through some financial challenges, resulting in some sharp decline in profits and even losses.

The oil exploration firm, for instance in 2014, recorded a $1.6 billion loss, whiles in 2015, it also recorded a billion dollar 1,037 million dollars loss. 

The challenge came about as a result of declining crude prices on the international market and challenges with the Jubilee FPSO, a development that affected oil production at that field. 

So Tullow was looking forward to this TEN project, to help turn around its fortunes or a pickup in daily production of Crude Oil.

Chief Executive of Tullow Oil, Aiden Heavey, speaking to Joy Business after the official commissioning, says this development could not have come at a better time.

According to him, "Oil prices have stabilised, and therefore having a great field like TEN coming on stream, will really turn around our fortunes."

The Chief Executive of Tullow is also optimistic that, starting commercial production on the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme will allow them to fix the problems with the Jubilee FSPO.

President John Mahama after commissioning the facility was excited about, the opportunities it will present to the country, looking at the fact that most of the projects were done by indigenes.

He thanked the partners for doing a lot to finish the project on time and pressing ahead with the development even at a time crude prices have witness a significant reduction. 

Engaging some of the Ghanaian workers FPSO John Evans Atta-Mills, they were excited to part of building and exploration on the TEN field.

However, some were worried about, salaries disparities between them and expatriates working in the field. 

But Chief Executive of the Petroleum Commission, Theophilus Ahwireng admitted the challenge in the industry and said they are working to address it.

Some analysts are of the view that, the commencement of production at TEN, and upcoming ENI gas project, that could push Ghana into an oil industry very soon.

Meanwhile, JOYBUSINESS is learning that, Tullow, will its first cargo from the TEN field to SHELL. 

The TEN partners which are made up of Tullow with 47.18 percent, Kosmos Energy with 17 percent,  Anadarko Petroleum, 17 percent, GNPC with 15 percent and PetroSA has 3.81 percent have all invested about 4 billion dollars into the  development of this project.

TEN is expected to produce about 300 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) over its lifetime (approximately 20 years), 80 percent of which is oil and 20 percent gas.

The field will produce 80,000 barrels of oil per day when it reaches full production.

The TEN full field developments will consist of around 24 wells in total – a mixture of water injection, gas injection and production wells.

At start-up, 10 wells will be required and these have already been drilled.