George Owusu:The Oil Magician

 
There seems to be a lot of misconceptions about the discovery of oil in commercial quantities in Ghana today.

 
While some, including President John Evans Atta Mills have been praising the former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana National Petroleum Authority (GNPC), Tsatsu Tsikata, for blazing the trail for Ghana's oil discovery, DAILY GUIDE has been digging the files to find out how it all happened.

During this research, the name of the E.O. Group came up. The E.O. is the initials of Dr Kwame Bawuah-Edusei representing the 'E', and George Yaw Owusu for the 'O', the individuals whose unrelenting effort and fighting spirit led to the discovery of oil in commercial quantities.

They were those who managed to convince Kosmos Energy Company and brought them into the country after several rejections from various companies who had completely written-off Ghana as a country without oil.

Prior to the energy company's arrival in the country, several other oil companies had come to Ghana to explore oil but eventually gave up and left for their countries when they saw no signs of it.

They however left behind a number of research data.

Bawuah-Edusei and Yaw Owusu met in Canada some 20 years ago and have since been the best of friends.

Dr. Edusei, a physician by profession and Owusu, a petro-chemical engineer, came together to form the E.O. Group in 2002 but before then, they had established two or three companies- one with Kwabena Darko of Darko farms fame, and a telecommunications company with one Yaw Sarpong.

When they formed the E.O., their initial intention was to go into medical services and road constructions but they had a change in plan after they were contacted by the then Energy Minister, Albert Kan Dapaah, to organize a conference for him to address executives of oil companies in Houston.

Because he was in the industry, George Owusu was able to get some of the major oil companies in Houston to attend the programme.

After the conference, Owusu was contacted by a geologist who wanted to meet with the minister of energy. The geologist thus asked Owusu to arrange for a meeting with Kan Dapaah since he had made several but unsuccessful attempts to get a block to explore oil under the Rawlings regime.

Owusu therefore arranged for the company to meet then President Kufuor and all the right people for a discussion on the issue. After getting the block, Owusu was assured he would be made the country manager.

For one reason or the other, the arrangement did not work out, compelling Owusu to go back to his base in Houston.

Owusu's second encounter was with another geologist, Ernest, who was working with a company called DINA. Ernest asked Owusu and his E.O. Group to partner him to get a block.

Owusu declined since he did not have the needed resources to undertake such a venture, but Ernest asked him not to worry and then brought in his company Ennex to lobby for the block, which they got in the current West Cape Three Points area.

Though they managed to get the oil block, the company could not reach an agreement with government. They had to back out at the last minute because the price of oil had dropped on the world market, making it impossible to find investors.

George Owusu was therefore left with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) covering the West Cape Three Points, together with a partially negotiated agreement because his partner had left.

The E.O. Group thus went searching for another partner, but all including Shell USA, Hess, Texaco and Chevron turned down their proposal because for them there was nothing such as oil in commercial quantities in Ghana and they did not want to take any 'unnecessary risks'.

In the course of their search for a new company to partner, the E.O. Group was told of a man called James Musselman in Dallas, who had just formed Kosmos and would probably be needing a partner.

The E.O. Group had a difficult time locating him since they had very little information about him but when they eventually managed to get in touch with Musselman, he showed interest and after several talks he decided to come to Ghana.

Owusu and his E.O. Group was then fighting for 50% shares in the deal but after several negotiations, Kosmos offered them 3.5%, which was coming from their share and not from the shares of the Government of Ghana (GoG), as has been speculated.

Kosmos and the E.O. Group came to meet several files and documents which had been left by successive companies in their attempt to find oil, and with the aid of their own 3D data, they discovered oil in commercial quantities.

Now that Ghana has joined the league of oil producing nations, George Yaw Owusu and his partner in the E.O. Group, Dr Kwame Bawuah-Edusei, can hold their heads up high in spite of the several issues including the frustrations they went through till today.

It is time for Ghanaians to celebrate their own because if not for the fighting spirit of the E.O Group, the much talked-about oil may not have been discovered.

It thus behooves on managers of the country to put the oil proceeds to good use for the benefit of the entire nation and not some selected few.

By Charles Takyi-Boadu