The GNPC lifted the crude oil on behalf of the Ghana Group, comprising Government of Ghana (GoG) and GNPC.

The 994,691 barrels of oil lifted is made up of accumulated government royalty of 275,346 barrels and accumulated GNPC’s 13.75 per cent participating interest entitlement of 719,345 barrels. A statement issued in Accra, on Thursday, said the vessel had since set sail to deliver the cargo to a Total Refinery, in the port of Fos, France.

GNPC with the assistance of Vitol and Woodfields Energy Resources (formerly Cirrus Energy Services) successfully marketed the cargo on the best available commercial terms.

The premium achieved over Dated Brent obtained was an improvement over previous Jubilee crude oil lifting. “This sale brings us closer to achieving our objective of realising the maximum technical value for Jubilee Crude in the shortest possible time through our aggressive international marketing efforts, “the statement said.

It said, based on current price trends, it was expected to realise about 108 million dollars from the sale of Ghana’s second lifting.

“The final value will be determined by June 1, 2011, as the average of five consecutive days of Dated Brent prices published in Platt’s Crude Oil Marketwire,” it added.

The statement said Vitol/Woodfields were selected to assist GNPC market and trade Ghana’s entitlements of Jubilee crude oil for 2011 and were discussing with GNPC the possibility of a longer term joint venture marketing relationship, which would enable GNPC to further develop its petroleum marketing and trading capabilities.

The GNPC reassured Ghanaians that the measurement/metering system onboard the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah was electronic, comprehensive, effective and accurate. “The system has been designed to automatically detect and compensate for any defects that occur in any of its parts,” it added.
Source: GNA

Page last updated at Tuesday, May 24, 2011 14:14 PM // Leave Your Comment Kosmos Energy has revealed that one of the Jubilee Partners at Ghana’s oil fields, the EO Group owes it an amount of $61.7 million and it might have to go to court to claim the amount as the Ghanaian owned oil company has failed to repay the amount on schedule in December 2010.

According to Texas-based oil producer, Kosmos Energy, the money for Development Costs on the oil fields was paid on behalf of EO.

Kosmos Energy, indicates that under what is termed as the EO Participation Agreement, it was entitled to reimbursement for the development capital expenditures paid for the EO Group’s 3.5% share of costs.

In a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Kosmos disclosed, “EO Group was obligated to pay their share of costs under the West Cape Three Point (WCTP) Petroleum Agreement pursuant to the joint operating agreement for the WCTP Block among Kosmos Ghana, Anadarko WCTP, Tullow Ghana, EO Group and Sabre Oil and Gas (the WCTP JOA), due to termination of the EO Carry and to reimburse Kosmos Ghana for EO Development Costs in the amount of $61.7 million.” Where JOA is Joint Oil Agreement.

Kosmos continues, “Each non-defaulting party must pay its proportionate share of the EO Group’s default amounts and has done so… EO Group has also not reimbursed Kosmos Ghana for the $61.7 million in EO Development Costs and accordingly currently remains in default under the EO Participation Agreement.”

According to Kosmos, as a defaulting party under the WCTP JOA, the EO Group loses its right to sell its share of oil production which is instead sold by the non-defaulting parties to repay the default amounts paid by the non-defaulting parties.

“Our ability to collect the $61.7 million owed to Kosmos Ghana under the EO Participation Agreement by the EO Group depends on the EO Group’s ability to sell its share of the Jubilee oil production or sell all or part of their interest in the WCTP Petroleum Agreement,” Kosmos says. Komos meanwhile, threathens to send the EO Group to court if EO fails to pay debt.

“If Kosmos Ghana is not paid, Kosmos Ghana would have a contractual claim against EO Group for the amounts owed under the EO Participation Agreement and our recourse would be to international arbitration”, it says.

Now that I’ve dispensed with the obvious and obnoxious teaser headline, let’s drop the towel and expose Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s history of arrogant abuse. The truth is, the grandee of the IMF has molested Africans for years. **

On Wednesday, the *New York Times* ran five – count’em, FIVE – stories on Strauss-Kahn, Director-General of the International Monetary Fund. According to the Paper of Record, the charges against “DSK,” as he’s known in France, are in “contradiction” to his “charm” and “accomplishments” at the IMF.

*Au contraire, mes chers lecteurs.*

Director-General DSK’s cruelty, arrogance and impunity toward African and other nations as generalissimo of the IMF is right in line with the story told by the poor, African hotel housekeeper in New York City.

Let’s consider how the housekeeper from Guinea ended up here in New York. In 2002, this single mother was granted asylum. What drove her here?

It began with the IMF rape of Guinea.

In 2002, the International Monetary Fund cut off capital inflows to this West African nation. Without the blessing of the International Monetary Fund, Guinea, which has up to half the world’s raw material for aluminum, plus oil, uranium, diamonds and gold, could not borrow a dime to develop these resources.

The IMF’s cut-off was, in effect, a foreclosure, and the nation choked and starved while sitting on its astonishing mineral wealth. As in the sub-prime mortgage foreclosures we see today, the IMF moved quickly to seize Guinea’s property.

But the IMF did not seize this nation’s riches for itself. Rather, it forced Guinea to sell off its resources to foreign corporations at prices much like the sale of furniture on the lawn of a foreclosed house.

The French, Americans, Canadians, Swiss (and lately, the Chinese) came in with spoons out and napkins tucked in under their chins, swallowing the nation’s bauxite, gold and more. In the meantime, the IMF ordered the end of trade barriers and thereby ruined local small holders.

As a result of the IMF attack, Guineans who could, fled for freedom and food. This week, then, marked the *second* time this poor African was molested by the IMF.

Now we have the context of how these two, the randy geezer of globalization and the refugee ended up, in quite different positions, in that New York hotel room.

Since taking over the IMF in 2007, erstwhile “Socialist” Strauss-Kahn has tightened the screws in an attempt to maintain the free-market finance mania that ruined this planet in the first place. *[That's worth a story in itself – and that's coming. Our team has a stack of inside documents from the IMF that we will be releasing in my new book in the Fall.]*

DSK’s lawyers say the relationship with the housekeeper was “consensual.” But DSK says that about all IMF agreements with nations over whom it holds life and death powers. That’s like saying a bank robbery is consensual so long as you don’t consider the gun.

Whether it was agreed-upon sex or brutal rape, it could only have been “consensual” in the same way that the people of Guinea consented to IMF-ordered financial rapine.

The Times article quotes an IMF crony of Strauss-Kahn saying DSK gets his way by “persuasion” not “bullying.” Tell that to the Greeks.

It was DSK who, last year, personally insisted on brutal terms for the so-called bail-out of Greece. “Strong conditionality” is the IMF term. Strauss-Kahn demanded not just a devastating cut in pensions and a deliberate increase in unemployment to 14%, but also the sell-off of 4,000 of 6,000 state-owned services. The DSK IMF plan allowed the financiers who set the financial fires of Greece to pick up the nation’s assets at a fire-sale price.

The Strauss-Kahn demands were not “tough love” for Greece: The love was reserved solely for the vulture bankers who received the IMF funds but were not required to accept one euro in lost profit in return. DSK, despite the advice of many, refused to ask the banks and speculators to reduce their usurious interest charges that were the root of Greece’s woes.

Requiring Greece to sell assets, drop trade barriers, and even end the rule that Greek ships use Greek sailors has nothing to do with saving Greece, but everything to do with DSK’s commitment to protect every banker’s balance sheet from unwanted violations.

I do not consider it a stretch to say that a predator in the bank boardroom suite assumes his impunity applies to the hotel suite.

*****

*Forensic economist and journalist Greg Palast, author of the New York Times bestsellers, *Armed Madhouse * and *The Best Democracy Money Can Buy *, has investigated the IMF and World Bank for BBC Television Newsnight and the Guardian Newspapers (London) and Democracy Now! (New York). *

However, among the major (or large) economies, China does remain the fastest growing economy. But if you take smaller nations too in the list, China slips down the list.

1. Ghana: 20.146%

Many economists believe that Africa is the next boomtown. Several African nations are now growing at a rapid pace, trying to make lives better for their people. None more so than Ghana.

For quite a long time, Ghana received many an unflattering adjectives to describe its economy: ‘worst managed’, ‘disastrous’, etc. However, the small African nation has since then come a long way and is the world’s fastest growing economy today.

Ghana’s economy is growing at a blistering 20.15 per cent, says Economy Watch. It’s a $23.4-billion economy.

Blessed with rich reserves of natural resources, Ghana has suddenly turned around and is now speeding along the growth path.

Ghana suffered the most due to the ineffective economic policies of past military governments, says Wikipedia, but the new government has managed to bring the country out of economic doldrums.

Economic reforms, political stability, low crime rate, and an overhaul of earlier policies have made the nation very attractive to foreign investors.

Ghana is oil-rich, has large gold and diamond deposits, and has a booming tourism industry.

Others are:

2. Qatar: 14.337%
3. Turkmenistan: 12.178%
4. China: 9.908%
5. Liberia: 9.003%
6. India: 8.43%
7. Angola: 8.251%
8. Iraq: 7.873%
9. Ethiopia: 7.663%
10. Mozambique: 7.548%

With the combined efforts of the World Bank and the National Development Planning Commission (NDPC), the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning (MOFEP) hosted the Stakeholders Forum on Draft National Public-Private Partnership (PPP) Policy for Ghana on September 16, 2010.
While participants questioned the validity of the current attempt in light of the 2004 PPP policy guidelines which remain ineffective, the forum set forth a clear objective to develop a policy framework for National PPP which would facilitate implementation of Ghana’s PPP agenda. The urgency for its production derives from the dearth of critical infrastructure and effective provision of public services which PPP projects propose to address.
Even as the chairman of the NDPC has yet been identified as Ghana’s PPP Champion, the demand for such a document grows; infrastructure drives productivity and economic growth but is also essential to the physical well-being and security of the population. Beyond its more superficial, albeit undesirable, manifestation in one’s daily commute, lack of infrastructure has much more serious implications. Chairman P.V. Obeng notably cited the loss of seventy lives in the Northern region due to inadequate flood-management capacity. Still, as the chairman himself asserted, “The infrastructure [deficit is] such that the government cannot ‘do it’ alone,” and further explained that to do more would only incur more debt. Fortunately, PPPs offer a potential solution as the public sector shares not only the benefits but the risks in partnership projects with its private counterpart. Thus, if the government of Ghana is to take full advantage of the proposed scheme, the current policy framework should advance legal and regulatory guidelines that will promote an enabling environment for PPPs and transparent institutional arrangements to monitor them.
In order to comprehensively assess the various sections of the policy document, the forum was divided into syndicates to discuss PPP background and objectives; institutional roles and responsibilities; legal and regulatory environment; and the PPP process. Upon reconvening, many of the groups made recommendations which merely reinforced pre-existing elements of the draft or further advocated increased clarity in those stipulations which will follow from the policy framework. For example, emphasis was placed on coordination among Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) as contracting authorities with shared interests. Furthermore, it was suggested that the PPP might benefit from the establishment of a regulating body independent of these ministries. The latter prescription recalls another point of contention regarding the potential for granting MOFEP too much power and the risk of creating a bureaucracy; it was agreed, however, that MOFEP should maintain its “gatekeeper” role, as one representative of the World Bank remarked that it can only be as strong as the other MDAs allow it to be.
While initially one member suggested that projects should be brought to the level of the presidency, such a proposal was deemed unfeasible; additionally, participants felt that as projects will inevitably extend across administrations, they should be insulated as much as possible from the political agenda of the presidency.
Indeed, in order to attract the private investment necessary to the execution of PPPs, the policy framework should limit the role of politicians and ensure consistency across the mechanisms of the PPP process. It is important, then, that projects originate from the National Infrastructure Plan to identify infrastructure and public service priorities. The forum determined that in the absence of this document, which is currently being developed, the NDPC should be given authority to identify projects that serve the larger strategic plan. However, participants stressed that the approval process should be stringent, and there remains the need for specific policies to address unsolicited bids from the private sector, mechanisms for dealing with conflicts, and clear guidelines for project qualification based on viability and affordability. On this last point, a consensus that feasibility and pre-feasibility studies should be funded by the government was reached, as those emanating from the private sector again involve vested interests. Because PPP projects inherently have many possible implications for the future as well as the present, environmental and social impact assessments should also be made a priority at this stage.
Evidently, as the recommendations made by forum members suggest, the draft National PPP Policy for Ghana was a strong document to begin with, and only minor specifications regarding the roles of certain bodies and emphasis on the clarity of future PPP process guidelines were necessary. Capacity building among MDAs and MMDAs (Metropolitan, Municipal, and District Assemblies) to navigate the PPP process is also essential, but the time to move past the failed implementation of the 2004 policy guidelines is now. Given the deficit of infrastructure and its centrality to the development and well-being of Ghana’s constituents, the materialization of PPP policy and the complementary National Infrastructure Development Plan can no longer be delayed.

By Liana Bran is a student at University of Illinois at Chicago and currently interning with IMANI Center for Policy & Education.

*Franklin Cudjoe is head of Ghanaian think tank, IMANI, a non-profit, non-government organization dedicated to fostering public awareness of important policy issues concerning business, government and civil society. He is also editor of AfricanLiberty.org The Foreign Policy Magazine named IMANI, the fifth most influential think tank in Africa in 2010. Franklin was named Young Global Leader 2010 by the World Economic Forum.

In South Africa, you don’t get to see gold easily. In Kenya, very few people can afford a cup of quality coffee; in fact coffee houses are exclusive and the consolation for most people is tea.

In Sierra Leone, famed for its high quality diamonds, most citizens only see the precious stone in pictures.

Ethiopia and Uganda are the few exceptions. In Ethiopia, home-roasted coffee is a way of life as is matoke (bananas) in Uganda.

It is therefore not a surprise that in Ghana’s capital Accra, a country known for cocoa, getting a cheaper and better quality chocolate is almost impossible.

There are more chocolates on supermarket shelves in Nairobi than there are in Accra.

Though a coastal city with a climate comparable to Mombasa, Accra can only be described as humble.

Starting from the small and unattractive Kotokoto Airport — the hustle and bustle associated with airport taxis in most African cities hardly exists.

Accra is far from a modern city, but it is orderly.

The public transport system is a mixture of old rickety vehicles — similar to the Fords that dominated Nairobi’s Industrial Area route in the 1970s – 80s — saloon taxis and modern buses used under the city’s Rapid Transport System.

But Ghana’s cedi currency is strong, exchanging at 1.4 to the US dollar. In Kenya, it goes for Sh56 at current rates.

In 2007, Ghana devalued its unit by 100, leading to a confusion that still lingers.

It is not strange to ask for a product’s price and be told it goes for 10,000 cedi, yet it costs 100.

Speaking of money, if one wants tidy returns from the money market, Ghana is the place to invest in now.

Interest rates for one month fixed deposits is nine per cent and goes up to 14 per cent for three month fixed deposit.

hana is receiving its first payment for oil this month, which is exciting the people and government.

Debate now revolves around the new wealth and how the proceeds will be put to use.

One of the suggestions is to channel the money into funding the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), which is similar to Kenya’s National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF).

The oil revenue is expected to hit Sh80 billion every year.

There are concerns that the US has warmed up to Ghana to get priority access to oil.

President Barack Obama has visited Ghana and the country receives funding under the Millennium Challenge Account, a US scheme to reward Third World countries that embrace democratic governance and the rule of law.

Ghana has formed the Millennium Development Authority, an agency that implements projects financed by the kitty.

Just like many countries in Africa, Ghana has recovered from a turbulent past dominated by coups between the 1960s to 80s.

Penalty headache

On a light note, Ghana is yet to recover from the World Cup penalty miss by famed striker Asamoah Gyan at the extravaganza in South Africa.

If he scored in the extra time penalty against Uruguay, Ghana would have been the first African country to reach the semis in the history of the tournament.

“On that day, people moaned across the country. The city was deserted for two days. You would think it was the days of the military coups when people stayed indoors,” said David Abugri, a retired government driver who now operates a car hire business in the city said.

This has been accentuated by the company’s agreement which ended in January 2010 without a substantive buyer. Kosmos Energy had wanted to sell off its stake in the Jubilee Oilfield off West Cape Three Points to ExxonMobil for an amount of $4 million but Government intervened with objections describing the development as illegal.

Government on the other hand, wanted the concession to go to China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC), leading to a misunderstanding between it and Kosmos.

Indications therefore are that Kosmos Energy is streamlining its arrangements with Tullow Oil over its new ambitions in order to engender a smooth drilling operation.

In January, this year, the Financial Times (FT) reported that the Texas-based oil and gas exploration company was being investigated for corruption by US and Ghanaian officials.

According to the report, the authorities were looking into allegations of a relationship involving Kosmos and its local partner EO, that helped the US oil company to secure control of the Jubilee oil field. EO is supposedly a company owned by two political allies of former President John Agyekum Kufuor.

The FT continued that the case risked complicating efforts by Kosmos Energy to sell its stake in the Jubilee oil field to another Texas-based US oil company, ExxonMobil, in a deal valued at $4 billion. But Kosmos denied any wrongdoing.

Though FT said Ghana was preparing to file criminal charges against EO, nothing has ever since been heard about it.

A privately-held international oil exploration and production company focused on emerging and frontier basins offshore West Africa, Kosmos is led by a seasoned management and technical team formerly with Triton Energy – Jim Musselman and Brian Maxted.

The team has a proven track record of discovering and developing significant oil and gas reserves offshore West Africa and in other international basins. Warburg Pincus led the company’s initial $300 million equity financing in 2004, and also led a $500 million follow-on equity financing in 2008.

Since formation, Kosmos has experienced significant exploration success with two sizable oil discoveries that include Jubilee Field, the first commercial discovery in Ghana and the second largest discovery worldwide in 2007.

Kosmos is currently working with its industry partners to plan for the development of Jubilee Field and also continues to evaluate its large acreage blocks in other countries in West Africa.
Source: Business Guide

Total transit import for the period July to September 2009 was 88,046 metric tons, while the transit export was 3,638 metric tons. The journal said a greater share of the national maritime trade involving cargo trade was handled by the Tema Port that loaded and discharged over two million metric tons representing over 71 percent of total maritime trade.

The Takoradi Port on the other hand handled 869,631 metric tons, representing 29 percent of the national maritime trade. It noted that 280,850 metric tons, representing 37 percent of total export trade for the period were liner exports.

Out of the total liner exports, the Tema Port recorded a decrease as it handled 186,496 metric tons in 2009, compared with the 233,270 metric tons that passed through that Port in 2008. The Takoradi Port accounted for 94,354 metric tons of the total liner exports for 2009, as against the 97,730 metric tons in the third quarter of 2008, showing a slight decrease.

Dry bulk export trade took 62 percent of the total export trade, as 471,421 metric tons of the export trade was dry bulk exports trade. The Takoradi Port recorded the largest export tonnage of 467,467 metric tons of dry bulk exports, as against the 3,945 metric tons handled by the Tema Port in the third quarter of 2009.

Liquid bulk exports accounted for only one per cent of total export trade in the third quarter of 2009, compared with the 24 percent it recorded in the same period in 2008.

Liquid bulk exports involved the transportation of crude oil, oil products, and liquid chemicals, such as caustic soda, vegetable oils and wine.

On the maritime import side, the total 2,192,952 metric tons recorded represented 74 percent, as against the 3,155,169 metric tons for 2008.

The Tema Port recorded a slight drop in tonnage with 1,885,151 metric tons it handled during the period, as against the 1,990,709 metric tons it recorded in 2008.

Takoradi Port also posted a lower figure of 307,801 metric tons of total imports for the third quarter of 2009, compared with the 1,124,460 metric tons in 2008.
Source:GNA

Out of over 20 shops surveyed by the Ghana News Agency (GNA), in the central part of the New Juaben Municipality, only one shop located in an obscure corner behind the South Akim Rural Bank was the place, which deals in locally produced rice.

However the shop does not open regularly and had been closed for the past four days, the survey revealed.

Speaking to the GNA, Ms Sophia Kissi, a shop owner at the market, said some time in January, a representative of a company that distributes locally produced rice came to register shops dealing in rice.

She said the agent promised to start the supply of the locally produced rice in February but had not honoured the promise. Koforidua is not far away from Asutuare, Kpong and the Kwaebibirim District where rice is grown on a large scale
Source: GNA

Dr Oteng-Adjei said this in Tema when he visited the head office of the Ghana Grid Company Limited (GRIDCo) on Wednesday. He said stakeholders must ensure that whatever they came up with must reflect the changing sub-regional power environment that would facilitate the co-existence of both an organized wholesale market inside and outside Ghana.

The Minister’s visit offered him the opportunity to interact with Management and Staff of the company on how 93we can chart a direction for the future, given the challenges that the company and others on the power sector face.”

The Minister said the government was aware of stresses on the national transmission grid as a result of aging infrastructure coupled with a rapidly growing demand for electrical power. He said major outages might continue to be an increasing phenomenon if nothing was done quickly to increase investment in infrastructure in the power sector. Dr Oteng-Adjei pledged government’s support for GRIDCo to address its vulnerability if its target to increase access to electricity from the current 65 per cent to 85 per cent by the close of 2015 was to be achieved.

He commended management of GRIDCo for initiating projects to renew the transmission system by replacing obsolete parts, rehabilitating some others and expanding the lines and substations to help strengthen and stabilize the network. Mr Charles Darku, Chief Executive of GRIDCo, assured the Minister of the company’s commitment to work hard to restore the power system to its pristine status of yester-years. “We will, through hard work and determination, take the electricity sub-sector to new and greater heights,” Mr Darku said. Accompanied by Mr Appiah Korang, Board Chairman of GRIDCo, Dr Oteng-Adjei toured the company’s System Control Centre and the 330kV Substation being funded by the World Bank and other multilateral agencies.
Source: GNA