{"id":215739,"date":"2016-05-20T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=215739"},"modified":"2016-05-20T12:00:03","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T12:00:03","slug":"gnpc-justifies-37000-royalty-hold-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=215739","title":{"rendered":"GNPC justifies $37,000 royalty hold back"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has justified its decision of not paying royalties due government from the Saltpond Oil Production Company Limited (SOPCL) in 2015.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;lV0gs3Ubz0oI96mqg0PuplHJ1AvR9pBR&#8221;]The 2015 Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) report revealed that the SOPCL failed to pay a minimum of US$ 37,129 representing 3% of revenues as royalties to government for 2015.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This came despite the oil field lifting 25,453 barrels of oil in the second quarter of 2015.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Chief Executive Officer of GNPC, Alex Mould in an interview with <strong>Citi Business News<\/strong> explained that the corporation\u2019s decision was necessary.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe issue about them not paying royalties is a fact. With the oil prices going down, Saltpond oil fields basically is not commercially viable and we have to ensure\u00a0 that we keep a skeleton staff on the rig to make sure for health and safety purposes, the oil rig is functioning,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Mr. Mould further indicated, \u201cThere is nothing wrong with what we reported and I believe that we sorted that out with PIAC we gave them all the information, they have reconciled it and they agree with our position.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Owners of the Saltpond Oilfield have intensified moves to find a new investor to save the oil field from collapse.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The oil field which is owned by\u00a0Lushann International\u00a0and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has been struggling for years to accrue enough revenue to stay in business.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Alex Mould also intimated that his outfit is in discussions with the government and the relevant ministries to identify a roadmap in paying the royalty obligations and revive the operations of the Saltpond oil fields.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cWe are in discussion with the government with regards to what is owed by SOPCL, the Ministry of Petroleum is also in discussion with Lushann- the operator of the field, to bring in a third party to revamp the field.\u201d<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cSo those discussions are being held at the Ministry and I believe that the Finance, Energy and Petroleum Ministries have some agreements as to the royalty payments,\u201d Alex Mould added.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Find below the first part of the interview with the GNPC boss.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WwCo77TrC8Q\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By: Vivian Kai Lokko\/citibusinessnews.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) has justified its decision of not paying royalties due government from the Saltpond Oil Production Company Limited (SOPCL) in 2015. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;lV0gs3Ubz0oI96mqg0PuplHJ1AvR9pBR&#8221;]The 2015 Public Interest Accountability Committee (PIAC) report revealed that the SOPCL failed to pay a minimum of US$ 37,129 representing 3% of revenues as royalties to government [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"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":[32,170,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-215739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","category-oil-and-gas","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215739","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=215739"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215739\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}