Introduction
Ghana has four sedimentary basins: the Tano-Cape Three Points Basin, the Saltpond Basin, the Accra-Keta Basin and the inland Voltaian Basin. Exploration has taken place in these basins for more than a century.
History
Petroleum exploration in Ghana began in 1896 with wells drilled around onshore oil and gas seeps in the Western Region. The first offshore well was drilled in 1970, and commercial production from the Saltpond Field began in 1978.
The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation was established in 1983 and began operations in 1985, leading national participation in exploration, development and production. Successive seismic and drilling programmes expanded knowledge of Ghana’s offshore basins.
The discovery and development of major deepwater fields transformed Ghana into an oil-producing nation and created a new requirement for strong local operating, technical and supply-chain capacity.