(Bloomberg) – Ghana has officially rescinded its mandate requiring Eni SpA to merge its offshore oil field with a discovery made by a local company, bringing an end to a protracted five-year dispute.
The new administration in Ghana has decided to repeal the 2020 directive that compelled the Italian oil company, alongside its partner Vitol Holding BV, to integrate its Sankofa field with the adjacent Afina field, managed by Accra-based Springfield Exploration and Production Ltd., according to an official letter reviewed by Bloomberg.
This decision was made three weeks after Eni’s Chief Executive Officer, Claudio Descalzi, visited Ghana’s newly elected president, John Mahama. Seven months earlier, an international arbitration court had ruled that the previous administration’s directive to ‘unitize’ the two fields was unlawful.
Minister John Jinapor formally communicated this decision in a letter dated February 25, addressed to the three involved companies. The letter was verified by an official from the Ministry of Energy and Green Transition.
Eni welcomed the move, while a Springfield spokesperson expressed confidence that the government would facilitate an amicable resolution between the parties.
Merging oil fields is a common practice in the industry, enabling more efficient resource utilization through shared infrastructure. However, Eni and Vitol opposed the proposed unitization, arguing that it disproportionately favored Afina, which was granted a 54.5% share of the merged assets, while Sankofa was allocated a lesser portion.
Following a comprehensive review of the Stockholm-based arbitration court’s ruling and a legal opinion from Ghana’s new attorney general, the government withdrew the directive.
Source: World Oil
