Ghana\u2019s legal team has opened its defense at the International Tribunal of the law of the Sea (ITLOS) after Ivory Coast sued Ghana, seeking to stop Tullow Oil and its partners from exploring oil over a disputed oil block.<\/p>\n
[contextly_sidebar id=”AZEJxzt1MqPd7OoaepZytd0OUt21M0eu”]The dispute involves ownership of portions of the country\u2019s second biggest oil field the Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) project.<\/p>\n
The area under dispute, the TEN fields, is estimated to have oil reserves of between 200 million and 1.2 billion barrels.<\/p>\n
Ghana\u2019s foreign exchange reserves are expected to receive some significant boost next year when the TEN project come on stream.<\/p>\n
The TEN project is expected to deliver its oil first next year with a production rate of 80,000 barrels of oil per day.<\/p>\n
But this will not come to fruition if Ghana loses the case at the International Tribunal of the law of the Sea.<\/p>\n
Tullow lead operator of the field early this year expressed confidence that Ghana will win the case and production from the field will not be affected.<\/p>\n
But Tullow was downgraded last week by ratings agency Moody\u2019s over the dispute.<\/p>\n
Moody\u2019s cited Ghana\u2019s recent downgrade as well as its current boundary dispute with Ivory Coast as two of the main reasons for the downgrade.<\/p>\n
Attorney-General Marietta Brew Oppong-Appiah, who is leading Ghana\u2019s legal team says the court must dismiss Ivory Coast\u2019s claims since it could cost the nation over 2.2 billion dollars by 2017.<\/p>\n
In her introductory remarks at the court she argued, that the claims of Ivory Coast were unfounded and unjustified.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the order were granted and all work had to stop, it will have a devastating impact on our oil production\u201d she maintained and also accused Ivory Coast of making \u201cunfound allegations\u201d against Ghana and Tullow Oil company.<\/p>\n
But the Ivorian legal team disagrees.<\/p>\n
To them grave damage has already been caused to their country because of Ghana\u2019s stance on the ownership of the block.<\/p>\n
Cote d\u2019Ivoire opened its case in the morning, also insisting that \u201cgrave damage\u201d has \u201calready been caused and continues to cause grave damage\u201d to their country because of Ghana\u2019s stance that the territory is theirs.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile some industry players including minority spokesperson on Energy, K.T Hammond have told Citi Business News that Ivory Coast\u2019s move will be fruitless.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am confident \u2026that ultimately the Ivorian case will be fruitless,\u201d and described the actions of the Ivorian government as \u201chypocritical.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wondered why the Ivorians were \u201cup in arms\u201d when both parties had signed a mutual agreement to explore oil in the disputed area.<\/p>\n
\u201cOil exploration started along those areas so many years ago. The Ivorians were involved with their parts of waters and we were dealing with their parts of waters. It is a mutual agreement between the two countries.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed out that \u201cthere will be some implications\u201d if what the Ivorians are asking for has \u201cany merit\u201d and \u201cthe court tribunal is minded to grant it.\u201d
\n–
\nBy: Vivian Kai Lokko\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ghana\u2019s legal team has opened its defense at the International Tribunal of the law of the Sea (ITLOS) after Ivory Coast sued Ghana, seeking to stop Tullow Oil and its partners from exploring oil over a disputed oil block. [contextly_sidebar id=”AZEJxzt1MqPd7OoaepZytd0OUt21M0eu”]The dispute involves ownership of portions of the country\u2019s second biggest oil field the Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":45188,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[22,4],"class_list":["post-103729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-medcirclesgh","tag-st-augustines-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=103729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/45188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=103729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=103729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=103729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}