Adnan Adams Mohammed
Almost nine years when Ghana started commercial production of oil and gas, over $6.5 billion has been accrued in revenues.
Data from the New York Federal Reserve revealed this as the commutative revenue balances of the Petroleum Holding Fund and the Ghana’s Petroleum Accounts.
The data further gave details that, the commutative revenues were from Ghana’s earnings from its share of crude exports and taxes, rental charges and other payments made by the oil exploration firms operating on the country’s oil fields.
It stated that, so far, out of the accrued revenues, all the international oil companies paid about US$1.2 billion in form of taxes and rental charges. With the rest being revenues from carried and participation interests oils lifted.
Breakdown of the usage of the revenues were given as follows; US$2.0 billion had gone to the Ghana National Petroleum Authority to finance its operations since April 2011, US$2.5 billion have been advanced to government to finance some projects identified in the budgets over the years under the Annual Budget Funding Amount.
US$582 million was put in the Ghana Heritage Fund (a fund set aside for future generations) while the Ghana Stabilization Fund received US$1.3 billion. The two accounts totaled US$1.9 billion.
However, due to some deductions that have been made, it’s now left with a total amount of $844 million.
In the second-half (H2) of 2020, the Ghana Petroleum Funds returned a net realised income of US$8.93 million compared to US$8.57 million in first-half (H1) 2020. The Ghana Stabilisation Fund contributed 10% or US$0.88 million to total net income compared to US$1.43 million in first-half of 2020 whilst GHF contributed 90% or US$8.05 million compared to US$8.57 million same period.
The GPFs reserves at the end of H2 2020 was US$844.78 million (GHF was US$644.79 million and GSF was US$199.99 million) compared to US$741.88 million in H1 2020 (GHF was US$608.54 million and GSF was US$133.34 million).
Withdrawals from the GSF in the amount of US$307.54 million in H1 caused the fall in the GPFs reserves and led to a fall in realised income for the year 2020.
Consequently, oversight committees in their report have noted that, in the coming months, policymakers’ main focus will continue to be on the evolution of Covid-19 situation as it relates to infections, fatalities and associated medical interventions.
If the situation deteriorates, it may create a flight to quality with safe haven bond yields falling and impacting positively on the marked-to-market valuations of the portfolios of the Ghana Petroleum Funds in the near term
