Maritime dispute with Cote d’Ivoire still unresolved
Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire are claiming ownership of a territory in the maritime border of the two countries which experts say holds about two billion barrels of oil reserves, as well as 1.2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
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Ghana was the first to strike oil in the disputed C100 area along the Tano Basin and believed it had exclusive rights over that maritime boundary until April this year when Cote d’Ivoire also announced that it had struck oil in a block off its shore and adjacent Ghana’s Jubilee Field.
Although the Ghana government has, since the dispute broke out, sent a team to hold talks with the Ivorian authorities, indications are that Ghana’s neighbours have renewed their claim to the territory.
Disclosing this renewed activity to a section of the media on Tuesday, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, the Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, admitted that the dispute had arisen because Ghana had delimited its land boundary with Cote d’Ivoire but not its maritime boundary with its neighbour.
In a move considered a positive and major step towards resolving the issue, Ghanaian and Ivorian officials who met again in Accra Tuesday agreed to send a joint team to the area this month to clearly demarcate the boundaries.
The Minister of Lands and Natural Resources, Alhaji Inusah Fuseini led Ghana’s team, while Cote d’Ivoire’s Ambassador to Ghana, Bernard Ehui-Kotouna led the Ivorian side in the deliberations.
Discounting that the dispute between the two countries could get to a head, Dr Steve Manteaw, an expert in oil issues and Chairman of the Civil Society Platform on Oil and Gas, described the rumpus between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire over their maritime boundary as a small dispute that did not have the propensity to escalate in view of the fact that the two had very good relations.
Speaking to the Daily Graphic yesterday on the lingering dispute, Dr Manteaw said, “There are international practices that help address situations of this nature and then cross-border disputes over rights to acreages are best resolved through joint development agreements.”
“So our best hope, if we are unable to have a settlement that will enable us to recognise the boundary between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, will be to settle for an agreement that will develop acreages in the disputed area jointly between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire,” he said.
He said when that was done, proceeds would be shared between the two countries, so that there would be a joint management team between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire and then the companies operating would be reporting to a joint management team.
Dr Manteaw, however, admitted that in other places such disputes had been the source of conflicts. “And I know the conflict in The Sudan is largely in respect of Abyei,” he said.
According to him, “the dispute between Southern Sudan and The Sudan had to do with who had the right to appropriate the benefit of the oil field in Abyei, but in the case of Ghana, the relationship between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire is not one that is strained – we do have good relations”.
Meanwhile, KOSMOS Energy Ghana, one of the companies allocated blocks in the disputed area, says it is not distracted by the raging maritime border dispute between Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, as the company continues to develop some of its oil blocks.