Ghana's Offshore Oil Revival: ENI and Tullow Bet $2.4 Billion on New Deepwater Discoveries

Standing on the helipad of the Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel John Agyekum Kufuor, anchored 60 kilometres off Ghana's western coast, the scale of the country's offshore oil ambitions becomes viscerally apparent. The FPSO, a converted supertanker the length of three football pitches, processes approximately 50,000 barrels of oil per day from the Sankofa field — and that, according to its operators, is only the beginning.

ENI, the Italian energy major that operates the Sankofa field in partnership with Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), has committed $1.4 billion to a phased expansion programme that will bring the field's total capacity to 85,000 barrels per day by the first quarter of 2028. The investment includes the drilling of eight additional production wells, the installation of a second subsea production manifold, and the upgrade of the FPSO's processing facilities to handle the increased throughput.

Simultaneously, Tullow Oil — the London-listed independent that operates the Jubilee and TEN fields under a joint venture with GNPC, PetroSA, and Kosmos Energy — has finalised a $1 billion investment plan to stabilise and gradually increase production from its existing assets. The TEN field (Tweneboa, Enyenra, and Ntomme), which has suffered from water injection problems and reservoir management issues since coming online in 2016, is now producing a stable 65,000 barrels per day following the successful implementation of an enhanced oil recovery programme.

The Production Outlook

Ghana's total oil production, which has fluctuated between 120,000 and 180,000 barrels per day over the past five years, is projected to exceed 200,000 barrels per day by mid-2028 once the Sankofa expansion and TEN stabilisation are fully operational. At current oil prices of approximately $78 per barrel, that level of production would generate annual gross revenues of $5.7 billion — a transformative sum for a country with a GDP of $78 billion.

The revenue implications for the Ghanaian government are significant. Under the current production-sharing agreements, the state receives approximately 55 percent of oil revenue after cost recovery, which at projected production levels would translate to government oil revenues of approximately $1.8 billion annually by 2029. That figure would represent roughly 7 percent of total government revenue, providing a meaningful fiscal buffer — but also raising concerns about resource dependency that have haunted Ghana since oil was first discovered in commercial quantities in 2007.

Deepwater Tano and Cape Three Points

The most exciting prospect lies in the unexplored blocks of the Deepwater Tano and Cape Three Points licence areas, where seismic surveys conducted in 2024 and 2025 have identified what industry geologists describe as "promising but unconfirmed" hydrocarbon accumulations at depths of 2,500 to 3,800 metres.

ENI and Tullow have committed to drilling two exploration wells in the area by mid-2027, at a combined cost of $320 million. The wells, named Akasa-1X and Atta-1X, target structures that geologists estimate could contain between 300 million and 800 million barrels of recoverable oil equivalent — a range that, at the upper end, would make the discovery one of the largest in West Africa in the past decade.

"We are betting on Ghana," said ENI's regional director for West Africa, Giulio Gasperi, during a press briefing in Accra last month. "The geology is proven, the fiscal terms are competitive, and the government has demonstrated a commitment to regulatory stability. That combination is rare in this part of the world."

GNPC's Evolving Role

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation has undergone its own transformation in parallel with the sector's revival. Under CEO Opoku Ahweneeh Danquah, GNPC has shifted from a purely regulatory and participation role to a more active operational capacity. The company has established an in-house drilling team, partnered with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on technical training programmes, and taken a direct equity stake in the Sankofa expansion.

GNPC's ambition is to eventually operate its own fields without international partners — a goal that industry observers consider achievable within 10 to 15 years, given the pace of capacity building. The company has also expanded its downstream operations, acquiring a 30 percent stake in the Tema Oil Refinery's planned expansion and developing a network of natural gas distribution pipelines that will carry associated gas from the offshore fields to power plants and industrial consumers in the Tema and Takoradi free zones.

Local Content and Community Impact

The oil sector's contribution to the local economy has been a persistent source of contention. Despite a local content framework that mandates 30 percent Ghanaian participation in all oil sector activities, the actual level of local content — measured by the value of goods and services procured from Ghanaian companies — stands at approximately 22 percent, according to the Petroleum Commission's 2025 annual report.

The gap is most acute in the technical and engineering services segment, where Ghanaian companies have struggled to compete with established international firms. A new local content enhancement programme, launched by the Petroleum Commission in January 2026, provides grants of up to $500,000 to Ghanaian oilfield services companies seeking international certification, and has established a mandatory apprenticeship programme that requires international operators to train a minimum of 200 Ghanaian technicians per year.

In the coastal communities closest to the oil fields — towns like Axim, Half Assini, and Princess Town — the impact has been mixed. Employment opportunities have increased, particularly in construction, catering, and maritime logistics. But fishing communities have reported declining catches since production began, a pattern attributed to seismic survey disruption, water discharge from production facilities, and increased vessel traffic in traditional fishing grounds.

"The oil companies come with promises," said Nana Kofi Blay, a fishing chief in Axim. "They built us a school and a clinic. But they cannot build us fish. The sea is our farm, and the farm is dying."

Gas and the Power Sector

Ghana's offshore gas production, which began in 2018 with the Sankofa field's gas development project, has become a critical input for the country's power sector. The Atuabo Gas Processing Plant, which receives and processes associated gas from the offshore fields, currently supplies approximately 180 million standard cubic feet per day to power plants in Aboadze, Karpowership, and Sunon Asogli.

The gas-to-power infrastructure has reduced Ghana's dependence on expensive liquid fuel imports for electricity generation, saving an estimated $400 million annually in generation costs. The government's Integrated Resource Plan projects that natural gas will account for 40 percent of electricity generation by 2030, up from 28 percent currently.

The Environmental Equation

Environmental groups have intensified their scrutiny of Ghana's offshore oil expansion. Friends of the Earth Ghana, in a report published last month, accused ENI and Tullow of inadequate environmental impact assessments and insufficient emergency response planning for potential oil spills. The Ghana Maritime Authority has rejected these claims, pointing to the establishment of a $50 million oil spill response fund financed by the operators and the deployment of satellite-based oil spill detection systems covering the entire offshore licence area.

The broader environmental challenge, however, is the tension between oil production and Ghana's climate commitments. Under its Nationally Determined Contribution to the Paris Agreement, Ghana has pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 64 percent by 2030 (relative to business as usual). The expansion of oil production, which will increase the country's Scope 1 and 2 emissions from the energy sector by an estimated 15 percent, sits uneasily alongside these commitments.

"We are not blind to the contradiction," said Energy Minister Herbert Krapa. "But Ghana's right to develop its natural resources is not negotiable. The global north consumed its way to prosperity on the back of fossil fuels. Ghana will not apologise for seeking the same opportunity."

For now, the oil majors are betting that the opportunity outweighs the risk. ENI's $1.4 billion and Tullow's $1 billion represent the largest single-phase investments in Ghana's oil sector since the Jubilee field came online in 2010. If the exploration wells deliver, the sector could enter a new era of production and revenue — and a new chapter of debate about what Ghana wants to be when the oil runs out.