Ghana: African Energy Chamber ranks Ghana 5th in Africa for high offshore oil rig demand

Ghana secures the 5th position in Africa for the highest offshore oil rig demand, as reported in the 2024 State of African Energy by the African Energy Chamber.

Surpassing Libya, Ghana now holds the 8th position in Africa for offshore rig demand. This demand encompasses oil reserves, contingent resources, and exploration. An offshore rig is a substantial structure on or in water equipped for drilling wells and processing oil and natural gas.

The African Energy Chamber, Ghana’s offshore rig demand shot up over that of 2022. This shows that the nation has some significant oil and natural gas reserves.

The report also stressed that Ghana, Namibia, South Africa, Equatorial Guinea and Mozambique round off the top five countries with the highest percentage of contingent resources rig demand. This implies that rig demand in this particular area is sensitive to expected investment decisions.

“Most other producing countries show very little dependence on upcoming project sanctions to drive their rig demand”, it added.

Ghana currently possesses approximately 660 million barrels of confirmed oil reserves, contributing to a daily oil production of around 177,000 barrels.

“The breakdown of the top 20 countries by rig demand with associated split on what resource class is supporting the rig demand suggests majority of the rig demand is robust with only about 32% related to contingent resources and exploration”, the report alluded.

Meanwhile, the number of wells drilled on the African continent is estimated to increase to 967 in 2023, a 6 percent year-on-year growth.

An estimated 810 wells were drilled during 2020 with about 651 or 80% drilled onshore and the remaining 159 or 20% drilled offshore. The trend since then has been an increasing number of wells drilled per year in the post pandemic era.

In 2021, the total drilling activity surged to around 820 wells, divided almost evenly between onshore (80%) and offshore (20%). The momentum continued in 2022, witnessing an 11% year-on-year increase with a total of 910 wells drilled.