The impending dangers of Ghana’s oil field

Since the discovery of oil in 2007, Ghana has gained a spotlight in the oil industry. This comes a long way to adding up to the numerous resources the country has, which are bettering the lives of its citizens and making them comfortable. The exploration, drilling and selling of oil is just what we have done as a country since gaining the oil. However, there are so many things involved in an oil exploration and drilling, that, if maximum care is not taken, will cause damage not only to the ships and their crew, but to the water body and other organisms that have the water body as their habitat.  Research has it that too much noise near a good fishing hole causes a reduction in population of fish, which leads to dissatisfaction among fishermen . Ghana has two active fields currently drilling oil. The Jubilee field managed by Tullow Oil and the   Sankofa field managed by ENI. These fields are designed to drill oil and bring wealth to the country with all safety measures but there are factors that are being ignored by the government. These are;  fishermen who come a long way out onto the field to catch fishes near the drilling ships and other ships working on the field as supply vessels or construction vessels.                    Some fishermen even tie their ropes to the anchor or the FPSO JAK and set fire under it to cook their meals. The (FPSO) Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel is a ship designed to store oil and transport it to a commercial tanker ship basically. This FPSO flares off some toxic gases among others and thus makes it unsafe for unqualified personnel to be in the working field. Sometimes the waves get too high that it sways the canoes to hit the construction vessels, the danger is they rip their boats or cause damage to some side, they can fall and get chopped by the propeller or even the ROVs working. Even at times, the propellers are trapped by their fishing nets. The captains always have to sound an alarm to wade them off when they come around. Technically the ships know there are some no go areas for each other but these fishermen don’t even know.  My question is how do they measure these distances? After a chat with some of them, it seems that they sound ignorant about the situation. I quizzed again, can’t they see the dangers they put themselves into? The answer I obtained was that majority of the fishes love being around the ships hence they got no choice than to get that close to the fish.                                                                                                                                             I would really appreciate if the minister of fisheries could set up a law to prevent the fishermen from getting too close to the ships or probably using a beacon as a barrier to stop them from getting close. This in effect will save their lives and enhance smooth and safe operations. By Kofi Sarpong (Marine Engineer)