GNPC to review Tullow's contract with Belgian airline

There have been concerns about local content in the country's oil industry

The Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) will review the contract between Tullow Ghana Limited and Noordzee Helikopters Vlaanderen (NHV), a Belgium airline company, the Public Agenda reports.

Acording to the paper, information available to it reveals that GNPC has drawn the attention of Tullow to some lapses in the award of the contract and a review is very possible.

In December last year, Tullow, operators of the Jubilee Oil Field in Ghana, dropped the Ghanaian-owned Citylink airline company in favour of NHV for the transportation of perrsonnel and cargo of the oil company to the offshore Jubilee Platform.

Thomas Manu, Director of Exploration & Prooduction at the GNPC, connfirmed the review will take place but indicated, "I don't want to discuss this matter in public." He however said the GNPC has "called for full documentation on the conntract."

The GNPC has 13.75 per cent stake in the Jubilee Field which was discovered in June 2007. Tullow holds a 34.7 percent stake in Jubilee, Anadarko Petroleum Corp. owns 23.49 percent, Cosmos owns 23 percent, Sabre Oil & Gas holds 2.81 percent while EO Group has 1.75 percent.

By agreement, 10% of GNPC's share is a carried interest, meaning GNPC would receive a 10% share of production with no exploration or development costs. This share guarantees GNPC a 50-50 representation on the Joint Management Committee (JMC) of the various oil commpanies involved in the project.

GNPC, therefore, ought to make input into any production related issues, including hiring of services.

Some industry observers believe that GNPC has either failed to seek the interest of Ghanaians by allowing Tullow to contract the NHV or it was unaware of the contractual processes. In the reecent past the GNPC was left in the dark by one of its partners in the Jubilee Field Project. In the second half of 2009, Kosmos Energy was accused of violating Ghanaian laws when it shared confidential exploration data with over 20 companies for its own commercial purposes without giving the GNPC any prior notifiication.

NHV began flying to the Jubilee Field in December 2009 after it had won an international bid opened by Tullow in the course of 2009. Independent sources said Tullow had opened the bid without informing Citylink which was its substantive client. The local airline was said to have put in a bid upon learning about the process and eventually lost out to the Belgian operator.

But counter information indicates that the GNPC had drawn attention to certain lapses even before the NHV was contracted. According to information, local content, technical competence, certificate of flight, capacity (number of passengers) and age of aircraft were among the criteria, which a procurement committee working under the JMC had to consider.

But Tullow Ghana Limited has explained that a requirement of Offshore Gas and Petroleum (OGP) standards dictated its decision to contract the NHV. According to a statement from Tullow, it was seeking a first-rate service which CityLink could not provide despite being informed about their needs consistently. "Tullow Ghana is, and will always remain a champion and promoter of local content in its business - but will conntinueto place even greater premium on the value of safety of and for all our stakeeholders, the statement clarified."

The oil company said it makes no apologies for conducting its business in strict adherence to the industry standards.

NHV was established on 16th of May 1997 at Kortrijk, Belgium. The company indicates on its website that it is specialised in all kinds of helicopter transport and helicopter work in Belgium and surrounding countries. It proovides flights for the Belgian and Dutch Shipping Pilot Serrvice, VIPs, hospitals, oil and gas, etc. NHV has a Belgian Helicopter Transport Certificate issued by the Belgian CAA.

According to the company, it has "several conntracts with the Oil and Gas Industry to transfer personnnel and/or cargo from land to offshore platforms or to transsport personnel and cargo between the platforms. Such operations take place from Norwich (UK) and Takoradi (Ghana). Helicopters used for this operation are the Eurocopter EC 155 and the AS365N3 Dauphin."