Ghana To Buy Kosmos Energy�s Stake Alone

Ghana now intends to buy the stake of Kosmos Energy in the country�s largest oil field, the Jubilee oil field alone , according to Reuters quoting an anonymous source. According to the report, the country�s state-owned oil company, the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) does not intend to go into a joint bid with any rival company. �We are not going for a joint bid with any rival company. GNPC has the money to acquire all the stake,� the unnamed source told Reuters. Despite the offer of $4 billion by ExxonMobil and a signed agreement with Kosmos Energy to sell the stake to the former, the bid which has to be approved by the Ghana government is yet to be sealed, as it has become obvious Ghana does not favour the ExxonMobil deal. Instead, the report indicated, the GNPC intends to rather go into a partnership with another company after it has bought the stake. The Jubilee oil fields is said to be the largest to be discovered in West Africa in the last 10 to 15 years and commercial production of oil is expected to start in June 2010. Acording to Tullow Oil, the major stakeholders in the field, it has 1.8 billion barrels and has 17 wells. Dr Kwabena Donkor, Deputy Minister of Energy had said that under Phase One of the Jubilee Field project, 120,000 barrels of oil and 120,000 million standard cubic feet of dry gas per day would be produced in 2010. Production would be increased to 240,000 barrels of oil and 240,000 million standard cubic feet of gas per day under the second phase of the Jubilee Field project which is expected to commence in 2013.