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(Photo: Eni)
Ghana has ordered Eni SpA and Springfield E&P to start talks to combine their adjacent oil and gas fields, according to a letter seen by Reuters.
The April 9 letter from Energy Minister John-Peter Amewu to the two companies says the seismic data indicates that the Eni offshore Sankofa field, which went into production in 2017, and the Afina field recently discovered by Springfield have ” identical properties of reservoirs and fluids. “
It instructs companies to begin within 30 days the process leading to the unification or joint operation of the two fields to ensure efficient production, and gives them 120 days to provide the ministry with a draft agreement.
Spokespeople for Eni and Springfield confirmed they received the letter, but declined to comment further.
Amewu’s letter says Eni had previously argued that it was premature to talk about unification, since Springfield had not yet evaluated or proven its discovery, but that the ministry rejected that argument.
Sankofa is part of Eni’s Offshore Cape Three Points project off the Atlantic coast of Ghana, which it says has reserves of approximately 40 billion cubic meters of unassociated gas and 500 million barrels of oil.
Springfield, a wholly-owned Ghanaian company, said in December that it had discovered 1.5 billion barrels of oil and 0.7 trillion cubic feet of gas in its Afina field.
(Report by Christian Akorlie; Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Giles Elgood)