Mr Ken Wellington, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry, said the summit on the theme: “The Future Energy in Ghana,” aims at bringing together local and international business leaders, investors, policy makers, civil society organisations, development partners and industry leaders to exchange ideas.

He said participants would also share experiences that would culminate into comprehensive energy sector policies and strategies to effectively govern and ensure co-ordinated investments and sustained growth of the sector.

He said the summit would also discuss investment opportunities available in the sector and provide avenues for targeted and strategy driven investments rather than the current deal driven approaches. Speaking to the Ghana News Agency in Accra, Mr Wellington said Ghana had made tremendous efforts at securing adequate energy for national economic development over the years, both with respect to power and petroleum, driven by a mosaic of policy and institutional reforms.

He said the Petroleum Downstream subsector had seen a strong regulatory role by the National Petroleum Authority, spearheading the gradual removal of subsidies, liberalisation and engendering healthy competition in the sector.  He noted that the summit would also discuss investment opportunities available in the sector and provide avenues for targeted and strategy driven investments rather than the current deal driven approaches.

“The Petroleum Upstream subsector, although very nascent, has equally witnessed ample progress. Within less than a decade of first oil from the Jubilee field, the country can boast of two offshore producing fields and a third scheduled to come on stream in the third quarter of 2017.

“This is supported by a buoyant service industry with great potential for growth,” Mr Wellington added. He said the power subsector, on the other hand, although significant progress had been made with respect to shoring up generation capacity, modernising transmission and distribution infrastructure and increasing citizens access to electricity, the sector was still beset with challenges.

These include a huge debt overhang that threatens the survival of the power utilities. He said the Ministry was working with stakeholders to address these urgent challenges, including a moratorium on new thermal capacity additions, and exploring more transparent and competitive procurement processes for renewable energy capacity additions.

Mr Wellington said the Summit would provide a platform for stimulating discourse among key stakeholders leading to elaboration of practical solutions to the sector challenges.  He said it was envisaged that these prescriptions would find expression in the policies and strategies of the sector and the investment opportunities they present.