Ghana has named the Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) vessel that will assist in oil production in the Jubilee Field, offshore the western region, “Kwame Nkrumah”, after the country’s first President and pan-Africanist.
A statement issued by Tullow Ghana Limited, one of the companies involved in the drilling of oil, and received by PANA on Saturday, said the ceremony took place at the Jurong Shipyard in Singapore and the vessel bears the maritime name ‘MV21’
Ghana’s first lady, Mrs. Naadu Mills, led Ghana’s delegation to the naming ceremony and performed the symbolic act of breaking the bottle of champagne to signify the naming of the vessel, the statement said.
Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana who led the West African country to independence in 1957.
His Presidency is seen largely as the period in which the country made the greatest strides in the area of infrastructure development.
Nkrumah had a focus on developing Ghana’s energy potentials and built the first hydro-electric dam for the country as a means of generating a reliable source of energy for his programme of accelerated industrialisation, as well as developing Ghana’s energy resources.
There was also a marked intensification of Ghana’s search for oil during his tenure.
The statement said the naming ceremony signified the readiness of the vessel to set sail for Ghana.
“It also means that the Jubilee Partners have reached an advanced phase of the efforts at producing oil from the Jubilee Field on schedule – by the fourth quarter of this year,” it said.
The Jubilee Field was discovered in 2007 by a partnership comprising Tullow Ghana Limited, Kosmos Energy, Anadarko Petroleum, Sabre Oil, EO Group and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
They have since worked together to develop and produce the field within a three-and-a-half-year accelerated development programme, which has been acknowledged in the industry as world class.
Jubilee is also seen as a project that will set the benchmark for the growth of the modern oil industry in Africa.
It has an estimated recoverable reserve of up to 1 billion barrels, with significant further potential yet to be explored.
The partnership has a share-holding structure as follows: Tullow Oil (34.7%), GNPC (13.75%), Anadarko Petroleum (23.49%), Kosmos (23.49%), Sabre Oil & Gas (2.81%) and EO Group (1.75%).
The statements aid the FPSO was using the biggest turret ever constructed in the oil industry. It has an oil processing capacity of 120,000 barrels of oil per day, a storage capacity of 1.6 million barrels, and can produce 160 million standard cubic feet of gas per day.
Additionally, it has the capacity to inject more than 230,000 barrels of water within the same period
The FPSO is 60 metres wide and 330 metres in length, approximately the length of 3 football fields.
