How Ghanaians 'Enjoy' Sankofa Crude Oil: An Economic, Social and Political Reckoning

Ask an ordinary Ghanaian how they "enjoy" Sankofa crude oil, and the honest answer is: mostly, without realising it. Unlike a subsidised fuel pump price or a direct cash transfer, the benefits of Ghana's flagship offshore oil and gas project arrive quietly in a lit bulb, a stabilised grid, a line item in the national budget rather than as something citizens can point to and say, "this is mine." Understanding what Sankofa actually delivers, and to whom, requires looking at it from three angles: the economic, the social, and the political.

What Sankofa Actually Is

The Sankofa-Gye Nyame field, developed as the Offshore Cape Three Points (OCTP) project, sits roughly 60 kilometres off Ghana's Western Region coast and holds an estimated 500 million barrels of oil-in-place alongside 1.5 trillion cubic feet of gas-in-place.

It began producing in 2017 and was officially commissioned for oil production in July of that year, with gas output following in 2018.² The project is operated by Italy's Eni, which holds a 44.4 percent stake, alongside Vitol Upstream Ghana with 35.6 percent and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) holding the remaining 20 percent on behalf of the state.

Its $7.9 billion development cost made it, at the time, the largest single foreign direct investment inflow into Ghana since independence.

The Economic Dividend: Revenue Ghanaians Rarely See Directly

Ghana benefits from Sankofa through three revenue streams: royalties on production, corporate taxes paid by Eni and Vitol, and GNPC's own carried and participating interest in the project.

A portion of this income flows into the Ghana Petroleum Funds the Stabilisation Fund and the Heritage Fund established under the Petroleum Revenue Management Act to cushion the budget against oil price volatility and preserve wealth for future generations.

In principle, this architecture is sound; in practice, how much of it reaches ordinary households depends entirely on budgetary discipline that successive governments have struggled to maintain.

The Social Dividend: Keeping the Lights On

Sankofa's more tangible gift to Ghanaians may not be the crude oil itself, but the natural gas that comes with it. The field supplies an estimated 70 percent of Ghana's entire domestic gas supply, feeding thermal power plants along the Western Corridor Gas Pipeline and displacing the more expensive imported crude and fuel oil that previously powered much of the national grid.

The World Bank, which backed the project with the largest guarantees in its history at the time, described the gas development component as a "top priority" for Ghana, projecting the fields could continuously supply the country's thermal power sector until at least 2036.

A May 2026 agreement between Ghana, Eni and its partners to expand output by 30 percent to 350 million standard cubic feet per day by 2028 signals that this role in stabilising electricity supply is set to grow, not shrink.⁷

The Employment Reality: Real, But Narrow

The oil and gas sector does create jobs, both directly on the OCTP project and indirectly through the wider services economy it supports. But the sector's capital-intensive, highly technical nature means the number of Ghanaians employed directly on the field itself remains small relative to the billions of dollars invested.

Drilling, subsea engineering and FPSO operations demand specialised skills that limit how broadly the employment benefit is shared across the workforce, even as local content requirements have pushed for greater Ghanaian participation over time.

The Political Dividend: Infrastructure, Promised and Contested

Oil revenue's potential to fund roads, schools, clinics and other public infrastructure has always been the strongest argument for Ghana's push into offshore petroleum. Whether that potential converts into delivered infrastructure, however, depends on how disciplined and transparent the state is in allocating what it collects.

This is where public confidence has been weakest: despite the Petroleum Revenue Management Act's transparency provisions, enforcement has at times been inconsistent, and Ghana has faced recurring criticism over how efficiently and how equitably petroleum revenue actually gets spent.

The Honest Criticisms

Three concerns dominate the debate around Sankofa and Ghana's broader oil sector. The first is the classic resource curse warning: that a growing dependence on oil and gas revenue could crowd out attention and investment in agriculture, manufacturing and other sectors that employ far more Ghanaians directly.

The second is transparency the gap between the law on paper and its implementation in practice, which continues to fuel public skepticism about where petroleum revenue ultimately goes. The third is local impact: communities near Sanzule and the broader Western Region coastline, where OCTP's onshore receiving facilities and pipeline infrastructure are based, have at times reported environmental concerns and a sense that the immediate economic upside of hosting a multi-billion-dollar energy project has not matched the disruption of living beside one.

So, Do Ghanaians "Enjoy" Sankofa Crude Oil?

Aspect

How Ghanaians Benefit Revenue

Government earns royalties, taxes and returns on GNPC's equity stake, feeding the national budget and the Petroleum Funds

Electricity

Sankofa-Gye Nyame gas supplies roughly 70% of domestic gas demand, stabilising thermal power generation nationwide

Development

Revenue is earmarked for infrastructure and public services, contingent on government allocation and management

Jobs

Direct and indirect employment exists but remains limited given the sector's technical, capital-intensive nature

The fairest answer is that Ghanaians do enjoy Sankofa crude oil largely through the electricity that keeps homes and industry running, and through a revenue stream that, when well managed, strengthens the state's fiscal position.

But this enjoyment is neither evenly distributed nor fully optimized. Until transparency in revenue management closes the gap between what the law promises and what communities and citizens actually experience, many Ghanaians will keep benefiting from Sankofa without ever quite feeling like stakeholders in it.

Mustapha Bature Sallama
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Analysis,

International Conflict Management and Peacebuilding. ( USIP)

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