Ghana’s Oil Sector Emerges Second Largest Export Earner

A report from the Bank of Ghana has reveraled that Ghana’s oil sector is the second largest contributor to the country’s exports for 2017.

The country raised an estimated three billion dollars from the oil resources in 2017.

Official figures released by the Bank of Ghana show that the total revenue Ghana raked in from her exports stood at 13.8 billion dollars.

A further breakdown shows that gold contributed the highest of about 5.8 billion dollars with oil raking in 3.1 billion dollars.

Cocoa however trailed with export revenue of 2.7 billion dollars.

Ghana’s increased revenue from her oil exports could be attributed to the coming onboard of new oilfields from the TEN as well as the gradual rise in international price of crude oil.

The price of a barrel of crude rose from 63 to 72 dollars between December last year and April this year.

Meanwhile, the price of cocoa on the international market rather witnessed a drop for a greater part of 2017.

For instance between April and December, the price of a tonne of the cash crop dropped from 3,000 dollars to 2227 dollars.

Also, Ghana ended 2017 with total imports at 12.6 billion dollars.

The figures also reveal that oil and non-oil imports accounted for 1.9 and 10.6 billion dollars respectively.

In all, Ghana ended last year with a balance of trade surplus of 1.18 billion dollars, this means that the country exported more than it imported.