Energy Minister Peter Amewu has described as falsehood claims by IMANI Africa that Ghana stands to lose over $30 billion as a result of government’s failure to insist on a new arrangement in the biggest oil discovery by Aker Energy in Ghana

“The ministry of energy has called this press conference to set the record straight particularly to the extent that IMANI put out a total fabricated false information to educate the good people of this country. . ..IMANI portrayed to Ghanaians that Ghana is losing an amount of 30 billion dollars. This is an untrue story,” Mr. Amewu told newsmen at a press conference to respond to claims by IMANI Friday.

IMANI Africa said Aker discovered the oil after its exploration licence had expired in 2014 and failed to go through the right processes, thereby making their exploration activities illegal.

IMANI believes the Pecan X and Pecan Y in the Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block (DWT/CTP) are essentially not covered by any of the Petroleum Agreements (PA) in force, hence those additional finds require a new Petroleum Agreement to be negotiated under the Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, 2016 Act 919.

At a press conference in Accra on Thursday, 25 April 2019, Vice-President of IMANI Africa, Mr Kofi Bentil, questioned why the government has not taken action to secure what is due the country.

“Those two blocks are controlled and owned by Aker. So, it is a curious trend that if it comes to that we don’t seem to pursue our rights and to get the most from our oil,” Mr Bentil said.

Aker’s find is about 450-550 million barrels, with potential recoverable reserves of nearly one billion barrels, a discovery touted as the biggest in the oil sector in Africa.