British oil firm, White Rose Energy seeks offshore deepwater project in Ghana

White Rose Energy Venture, a British oil firm, has disclosed that it is in talks with the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to secure a licence to undertake exploration works in Ghana’s deepwaters.

The company says its operations in Ghana would will not be at the Jubilee fields.

“We are in discussion with the GNPC…and the project is an interesting one. It’s offshore deepwater project,” Jim Bradley, Chief Executive Officer of White Rose told ghanabusinessnews.com in an interview today October 16, 2012 in Accra.

“It’s not at Jubilee field but offshore Ghana,” Bradley said without giving details.

On how it will compete with some of the big players in the industry such as Tullow, Kosmos and others, the oil exploration company says it has some of the best industry workers at its disposal and is ready to compete in the oil industry.

“We’ve picked some of the best in the industry. We have Lord Brown who is the former CEO of British Petroleum (BP) and a number of top BP explorers,” Bradley said.

“We also have top explorers from British Gas (BG) who have been the most successful exploration company in the last 10 years,” he added.

We want to come and help Ghana discover and produce more oil, Bradley stated.

Asked when the company will officially begin operations in Ghana, Mr Bradley said “We hope soon. This is a complex process and so we want everything structured correctly and fair to all parties.”

We love to be successful just like Tullow, he said.

Backed financially by First Reserve and Riverstone, premier private equity providers for energy related projects, White Rose has a portfolio of upstream oil and gas assets in West Africa and aims to become a leading exploration and production company, developing local capability and maintaining a strong ethical stance.

Even though, it is yet to start operations in Ghana, White Rose has completed its first community project in Accra, commissioning and constructing a Water Tower costing $50,000 at the Nii Sowa Din Memorial School located in the Adenta Municipality.

The Water Tower has been constructed with four 5,000 litre tanks providing a maximum capacity of 20,000 litres of water which is drawn from a borehole and then purified in a reverse osmosis plant.

The company has also provided the Sowa Din school with over 500 science text books.

By Ekow Quandzie