Ghana Petroleum Commission gives IOCs April 1 deadline to submit oil contracts
In line with its transparency terms and conditions, the Petroleum Commission of Ghana has given all International Oil and Gas Companies (IOCs) and other service companies operating in the country up to April 1, 2018, to submit all oil contract to the Commission for proper review before they are sealed.
Acting Chief Executive Officer of the Petroleum Commission (PC), Mr. Egbert Faibille Jnr, said all IOCs are being given a moratorium between now till the end of March, to submit all such contracts to the PC, within three months to the anticipated date for the start of the contract.
According to him, aside the transitional contract already in motion, “everybody in the upstream sector who has any contract of a 100,000 dollar and above should submit that contract to the Petroleum Commission at least two months beforehand, beginning April 1 so we will get to know what is involved and we will alert all the companies that can put in bids”
Giving further insight at the first ever Local Content Procurement Conference held in Accra, he note that most of the time, “the IOCs would wait till the last minute before they would rush to the PC and put pressure on officials to sign such documents, in contravention with the regulatory laws, claiming if such document were not signed immediately, Ghana would lose money”.
“We are not going to continue with that again and so that it is fair for Tullow, ENI, Springfield, MODEC and everybody.
While sounding a note warning that those companies who failed to comply with the April 1 requirement would be made to face sanctions as required by the Regulation 2013 (LI 2204), and this includes fines and suspension of such contracts.
Furthermore, the Commission averred that IOCs were also required by the Regulations to advertise contracts and submit prequalification criteria and other basic information with the Commission before they were finally awarded, “but they all don’t do that”.
