Ghana’s petroleum receipts — comprising proceeds from liftings and other petroleum-related activities — amounted to $370.34 million in the first half of the year, representing a 56 per cent decline.
The drop in earnings has been attributed to low crude oil production of 18.42 million barrels (bbls) from the country’s three offshore fields — Jubilee, Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN), and Sankofa Gye-Nyame (SGN).
The output reflects a 25.92 per cent decline compared to the 24.86 million barrels produced during the same period in 2024.
Lower production
Sharing contents of the 2025 first half Annual Report of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) at a meeting in Accra last Wednesday, the Vice-Chairman of PIAC, Odeefuo Amoakwa Buadu VIII, stated that the decline in petroleum receipts for the period was mainly due to relatively lower crude oil production and global market price.
He said lodgments of $370.34 million were made into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF) as petroleum receipts for the period under review, compared with $840.77 million for the same period in 2024, a decline of 56 per cent over the same period last year.
Odeefuo Buadu explained that the revenues were derived from corporate income taxes (CIT), surface rentals (acreage fees), crude oil liftings and interest on the PHF.
Carried and additional participating interest (CAPI) contributed $178.48 million to the revenue; $148.75 million came from CIT, while royalties yielded $40.15 million.
He said interest on the PHF yielded $2.10 million, and surface rental payments amounted to $863,045.81.
“For the period under consideration, revenues from CAPI contributed the highest share of 48 per cent, followed by CIT (40 per cent), and royalties accounted for 10.8 per cent.
“Revenues from surface rentals and interest on the PHF constituted less than one per cent to the total revenue,” he said.
Oil production
Odeefuo Buadu stated that during the period under review, Ghana’s three offshore producing fields – Jubilee, TEN, and SGN – recorded crude oil production of 18.42 million bbls.
He said the output reflected a 25.92 per cent decline compared to the 24.86 million barrels produced during the same period in 2024.
“In the first half of 2025, crude oil production from the Jubilee Field totalled 11.02 million barrels, a 32.8 per cent decline compared to the 16.41 million barrels produced for the same period last year.
“The field’s average daily production dropped from 90,755 bbl/d in 2024 to 60,898 bbl/d in 2025. The highest monthly output in 2025 was recorded in January (2.40 million barrels), while the lowest was in April (1.27 million barrels), reflecting the impact of planned shutdown activities between March 26-31 and the continuation of shutdown work from April 1-8,” he said.
The Vice-Chairperson stated that the TEN field produced 2.97 million barrels for the period under review, down from 3.45 million barrels in the same period last year, representing a 14.0 per cent decline.
“Its average daily production declined from 19,065 bbl/d in 2024 to 16,420 bbl/d in 2025,” he said.
He said the SGN field reported 4.42 million barrels in the first half of 2025, compared to 5.00 million barrels in the same period of 2024, marking an 11.6 per cent decline.
“The average daily production decreased from 27,600 bbl/d in 2024 to 24,463 bbl/d in 2025,” he said.
Recommendation
Odeefuo Buadu called on the government, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that the Ministry of Energy and its allied agencies increased efforts to arrest the decline in crude oil production and secure investments into Ghana’s upstream petroleum industry.
He said that the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Petroleum Commission, the Bank of Ghana, the Ministry of Energy and other related institutions should increase collaborative efforts to recover the surface rental arrears.
“The committee firmly recommends that in the light of the global energy transition, the government should resource Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) better and revise its establishing law to strengthen governance so that the corporation will be better positioned to offer leadership in the exploitation of Ghana’s petroleum resources for the benefit of the country,” he added.
