The Jubilee Partners, comprising of Tullow Oil, Kosmos Energy, GNPC, Sabre Oil and Gas Limited and the E.O. Group, inaugurated First Oil from the Jubilee Field, Offshore south-west Ghana, on December 15, 2010 marking the beginning of commercial oil production.
Commissioning First Oil on the day, President John Evans Atta Mills, paid tribute to former presidents Kwame Nkrumah and his two immediate predecessors, Jerry John Rawlings and John Kufuor as well as the Jubilee partners, for their contributions to getting Ghana to first oil.
He however, singled out Tsatsu Tsikata, former Chairman and Chief Executive of the national oil company, who steered the affairs of the corporation through the 1990s when the country attracted a lot of international oil companies, whose exploratory work contributed immensely to the oil find.
“Production of Jubilee’s light sweet crude began only 42 months after field discovery, under an accelerated timetable represents one of the shortest cycles for any deepwater floating production and storage and offloading (FPSO)-based oil project of this scale in ultra-deep water,” Kosmos Energy has stated, an observation shared by other industry experts .
The Jubilee Field was discovered in 2007 and with Kosmos Energy as the Technical Operator for Development, it led the Integrated Project Team (IPT) ‘responsible for the subsurface drainage plan and for managing the planning, design, procurement, fabrication, installation, hook-up and commissioning of surface and subsea facilities, including the FPSO.’
Kosmos Energy’s first exploratory well, Mahogany-1, in the WCTP hit oil. “We are extremely pleased to have achieved this milestone for the Jubilee Field safely and on such an accelerated timetable,” was Maxted’s remarks on the First Oil day, adding that “Kosmos, along with our partners in the Jubilee Field, including Tullow Oil plc, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Sabre Oil & Gas, the E.O. Group and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, supported by the government of Ghana, most notably the Ministry of Energy, have together delivered the fast-track development of this national resource and created significant economic wealth for the people of Ghana and local economies.
FPSO Kwame Nkrumah M.V. 21, is capable of processing 120,000 barrels of oil per day, 160 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD) of gas and storing up to 1.6 million barrels of stabilized crude. It is also capable of treating and injecting 232,000 barrels of water per day for reservoir pressure maintenance and compression, and reinjecting or exporting 160 MMSCFD of gas.