Ghana’s Minister for Petroleum, Emmanuel Armah Kofi Buah, has announced the country was now permanently seated among the league of oil producing nations.
Mr Buah also announced that cabinet had given approval for the interconnection of the Ghana Gas Pipeline with the West African Gas Pipeline.
He noted that as the natural gas sector assumed significant growth trajectory, it was imperative that the country reviewed the institutional and regulatory structures to remove any bottleneck and to streamline the institutional and regulatory regime to facilitate further investments.
He added that Ghana could maximize value from the exploitation of the full potential of her indigenous gas resources if a transparent enabling environment was created for all players in the Gas sector.
The Petroleum Minister was speaking when the Ministry of Petroleum took its turn at the Meet-the-Press series in Accra, Ghana.
He said through legislative instrument (L.I.) on local content passed in 2013, major participation of local businesses in the infrastructure projects had grown, giving direct employment, as a result to about 7,525 Ghanaians to work in the sector.
He disclosed that under the on-going Rural Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) promotion programme, 33,000 cylinders and cook stoves had been distributed between 2014 and 2015, while the remaining 20,000 would be distributed by the end of the year.