40,000 barrels increase oil production; Tullow and partners are currently drilling more than 100,000 barrels per day

The Greater Jubilee Field has added roughly 40,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd), significantly increasing the nation’s oil production.

Since the Tullow Oil Ghana and its partners’ breakthrough, the Jubilee Field’s output has increased from the field’s previous 3 years’ average of 85,000bopd to over 100,000bopd.

The Jubilee Field’s production vessel, the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah, has a 120,000 bopd processing capacity.

Next month, it’s anticipated that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo would open the valves to start the first oil production from the Jubilee South East (JSE) well as well as further oil output.

The increase in output comes after the Jubilee South East (JSE), an extension of the Jubilee Field offshore Cape Three Points in the Western Region, was successfully developed.

Benefits

The country will gain a lot from the rise in production, including more money for the government, businesses, and the value chain, the transfer of skills, more jobs, and local content for the participation of indigenous businesses.

It also puts an end to the country’s 10% loss in oil production during the previous three years.

The “Ghana Volume Maximisation Plan” calls for the development of the JSE wells, which are a component of the Tano Basin’s Greater Jubilee Field.

A big field just got bigger, and over the years we have found Jubilee as potentially bigger than we assumed, and today we are looking at the possibility of Jubilee as a billion barrels recoverable, according to Wissam Al-Monthiry, the managing director of Tullow Ghana, the lead operator of the Jubilee and Tweneboa, Enyera, and Ntomme (TEN) oilfields. He made the announcement to the Daily Graphic.

The first commercial oil is anticipated to be produced next month, according to Jubilee’s primary operator Tullow.

Background

Since the previous two years, Tullow and its Jubilee Field partners have been investing in Greater Jubilee Field to boost production.

They have set aside $4 billion to invest in the project during the course of the following ten years, from 2021 to 2031.

sector experts deem the JSE’s effective development to be a great accomplishment since it will significantly boost the nation’s oil sector and economic expansion when the field approaches a 120,000 barrels per day capacity.

A representative of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) characterized the country’s new production wells as welcome news.

This is actually good news, as Technical Manager of PIAC Mark Obeng Adu Agyemang told the Daily Graphic. “We all know that since 2018, no field has been added, so this is actually good news,” he said.

Large field just expanded

With such success, Mr. Al-Monthiry claimed, “Jubilee Field could be placed in a completely different category as a world-class oil and gas field.”

Asked why the investment, he said, as the operator, after a find, the decision would be taken about which parts of the field to develop in a phased approach.

That approach gave the operator the opportunity to learn more about the field as it produced, the Tullow CEO added.

“From the mid-2000s to about 2016, it started to become clear to us that there was an opportunity to develop Jubilee further to the South East,” Mr Al-Monthiry explained.

“In the field trajectory, in 2020, a project was put together to receive a final investment decision to be sanctioned to develop Jubilee Southeast, which progressed even through the COVID-19 period and to the point now that we are looking at first oil here in the coming weeks,” the Tullow boss said.

Infrastructure under the sea

Mr. Al-Monthiry reiterated that the project underwent engineering, design, procurement, and construction of the various pieces of equipment for the installation of the subsea infrastructure throughout the course of the previous two and a half years after it was sanctioned in December 2020.

The engineering, design, procurement, and manufacture of the various subsea infrastructure components took place on three continents, he continued, but there was a large local content component.

For the project, one of the world’s most complex subsea equipment pieces was manufactured in Takoradi and is now in place, Mr. Al-Monthiry added.

Value enhancement

“With the Jubilee SE project, we expect that it will bring Jubilee’s production back to more than 100,000 barrels a day and keep it there for the foreseeable future, which is an exciting milestone,” he added.

In accordance with the $4 billion Ghana Value Maximization Plan unveiled in 2021, Mr. Al-Monthiry stated that almost $1.5 billion had been spent on the project. A sizable portion of that sum was used for the drilling and completion of Jubilee SE wells as well as the fabrication and purchase of equipment as part of the Jubilee SE program.

The approach

If partners are considering other basins for sustainability, he said: “Our goal in Ghana is to concentrate on fully utilizing the Jubilee and TEN fields.

“First oil in the next few weeks, it looks quite imminent and we are all very excited about it. After that, you will start hearing much more specific plans from us on the next phase of growth for Jubilee beyond,” Mr. Al-Monthiry continued.

“At the moment, we believe there is plenty of space to run on the existing fields and plenty of money to potentially invest if we can. We prioritize that, and we are also thinking at other opportunities, he said.

Field TEN

The Tullow Ghana Managing Director stated that the TEN fields were doing well and that although oil output was declining, the partners were still collaborating with the government on a long-term gas contract in addition to oil development.

“We will be submitting a second draft of a revised plan of development for the field to the Ministry of Energy,” Mr. Al-Monthiry said.

If that were to be allowed, it would provide the TEN Field with a vital lifeline that would allow it to develop on its own and continue to produce more oil and gas until the end of the permitted period.

Background

When President Atta Mills opened the valves on the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah in December 2010 to signal the start of the Jubilee Oil Field’s commercial crude oil production, history was made. In 2007, while President John Agyekum Kufuor was in office, it was found.

The country’s oil production consists of light sweet crude, a type of oil that is highly sought-after on the global market.

At the time, the Jubilee Field generated 120,000 bopd. However, after more than ten years of operation, the daily output has gradually decreased, leading to the investment.

Technical Manager at PIAC

When contacted for a remark, Mr. Agyemang expressed his appreciation for the “good news” and explained that PIAC and other pertinent stakeholders had been concerned about the production’s continued decline for the past few years.

“Our advice to the government and its agencies has been that we need to bring new fields online because, if the current trends continue, we’ll probably have to come to the end of production in the fields that we have lost in the next 10 years,” the group said.

As other investors withdrew, Tullow and its partners remained committed to investing that amount of money in the petroleum sector, according to the technical manager at the PIAC Secretariat.

“More fields should come on stream, and we hope that other fields in the Greater Jubilee area will come on stream as part of the Ghana Volume Maximisation Plan, in the shortest possible time to give impetus to our upstream petroleum industry and help us raise the needed revenue as a country,” Mr. Agyemang said.

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