Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

OAO Lukoil, Russia’s second-largest oil producer, will hand back its offshore discovery at Ghana’s Cape Three Points because the quantity of crude in the deposit wasn’t commercially viable, the oil-industry regulator said.

“The porosity of this sand or geology is very poor, ultimately recovery is not good so they intend to relinquish it,” Kwaku Boateng, director of special services at the Petroleum Commission, said in a Thursday interview in the capital, Accra. “The field is opened for other companies to come and explore.” Lukoil’s press service declined to comment.

The country with West Africa’s biggest economy after Nigeria’s is seeking to raise oil output fivefold in the next decade to 500,000 barrels a day as projects including Tullow Oil Plc’s Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme and Eni SpA’s Sankofa-Gye Nyame start production. Lukoil made the discovery last year and had 90 days to evaluate the find’s commercial viability.

Lukoil secured 40 percent in New York-based Hess Corp.’s Deepwater Tano/Cape Three Points project off Ghana’s coast last year, Lukoil Overseas President Andrey Kuzyaev said July 30.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc has expressed interest in Ghana’s Keta Basin and ExxonMobil Corp. has come to the country to examine data on the Deepwater Tano area, Boateng said.