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OCTP: oil and gas off the coast of Ghana

Offshore Cape Three Points is a development project for hydrocarbon fields, with the gas produced entirely destined for the country.

Energia for Ghana

Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) is an integrated project for developing fields of oil and non-associated gas. It is the only non-associated gas development project that entirely dedicated to the domestic market in sub-Saharan Africa. We are an operator with 44.44% of the permit for OCTP, which is governed by a concession agreement. The block, which has reserves of about 40 billion m3 of non-associated gas and 500 million barrels of oil, is located about 60 kilometres off the coast of western Ghana. The Sankofa and Gye Nyame fields are developed through wells and systems on the seabed, and linked through pipelines to the floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) unit John Agyekum Kufuor. We began production in OCTP in May 2017, just two and a half years after the project was approved. Production began three months before the date in the development plan, with an excellent time-to-market. We also have a share of 42.47% in the offshore exploration licence Cape Three Points Block 4, where in 2019 we drilled the exploratory well Akoma - 1X, finding sizeable gas and associated condensate resources. This discovery presents more potential for oil and gas and will be subject to a campaign of drilling.  In 2019 development activity of the OCTP oil and gas project was completed. In 2020, 98% of Ghana’s thermal power was generated by gas, more than 50% of which came from the OCTP project.

The FPSO John Agyekum Kufuor: photo gallery

OCTP production began in 2018, from two of the four deep water wells connected to the FPSO John Agyekum Kufuor  floating production, storage and offloading unit. The facility has an oil processing capacity of 58 thousand barrels per day and a gas processing capacity of 5.93 million standard cubic metres per day, while a 63 km natural gas pipeline connects it to the coast.

Safety first

Safety in the workplace is an imperative value we want to share with our employees, contractors and local stakeholders. We are committed to eliminate accidents and protect the integrity of our assets. We consolidate a culture of safety through management and organization models, digital tools and communication initiatives. Our goal is strengthening the awareness of our people and their sense of responsibility toward themselves and others, by expanding HSE tools and digitalization to make corporate processes safer, more efficient and faster. 

Technologies we use

The Sankofa oil field was discovered thanks to our technologies for studying subsoil. It lies deeper than the gas field at the same location, discovered earlier. Advanced seismic imaging and field modelling have let us reconstruct subsoil in very high definition, which speeds up development times. These technologies rely on the computing power of the Green Data Center in Ferrera Erbognone, near Pavia, where our IT processing systems like HPC4 can do 22.4 million billion operations a second.

Asset

FPSO John Agyekum Kufuor left Singapore on 28 February 2017 and, after a 40-day journey, reached Ghana on 10 April. The floating unit is a great example of how we reuse existing assets, having been built from a completely converted oil tanker, which saved us a great deal of cost and time compared to building a new FPSO from scratch.

Energy is an incredibly important part of our industrial growth. Before discovering the Sankofa field, the energy supply available to us was very unstable, but now that our electricity is constant, we're much more competitive in the market

Stephen Badu - Marketing Director, GTP

Impact on the environment and communities

The gas fields in OCTP has provided a continuous supply to Ghana's thermoelectric generation system since 2018 and will do so for another 15 years at least, and quite possibly 20, thanks to long-term contracts with the government. Developing national gas resources in Ghana is a priority in improving access to energy in the country, increasing sector profits and creating a flow of extra revenue for the government. Natural gas, available locally at affordable prices, gives people a more stable, clean and safe energy supply. The development project for OCTP, is an example of our dual flag approach, as 49% of its contracts were assigned to local companies, 75% of staff are local and every year $1.3 million are spent on scholarships and training.

Finally, because it has zero flaring and emissions, the project has a minimal environmental impact. Another environmental benefit of non-associated gas is that it replaces petrol in existing plants and feeds new power stations.

We have never done exploration or development work for hydrocarbons within the boundaries of natural sites on the UNESCO World Heritage list, and in May 2019, we formally committed never to do so, officially instating a biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES) policy that we had already followed in our operations and which is part of our path of transformation. We are committed to long-term investment, going beyond profit priorities in the short term from the operating and social point of view, as recognised in our new company mission, which is inspired by the UN's Sustainable Development Goals.