Paper short abstract:

Ghana's new oil/gas projects have produced resentment and negative impacts in the Western Region. This paper presents qualitative research from 2010 and 2015 to examine the impacts of oil and gas production over time and identifies growing frustration in the region with the Ghana’s petroleum industry.

Paper long abstract:

With much fanfare and raised expectations for the country's development, Ghana's Jubilee Oil Field was discovered in 2007 and began producing oil in 2010. In 2016, Ghana's Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) field is expected to begin oil production, while the Sankofa field is likely to begin producing oil and gas in 2017. These new projects have turned the country into a significant oil exporter. The three projects are located in the deep waters off Ghana's Western Region. As such, the six coastal districts whose expectations of oil-backed development had been built since 2007 have instead been confronted with what they perceive to be negative impacts of oil and gas production. In 2010, as oil was first being produced from the Jubilee field, a team of researchers visited the Western Region's six coastal districts, meeting with district officials and various stakeholders. They also conducted in depth interviews and focus groups in selected communities in each district. This paper builds on this research by following up in the same districts and communities five years later to produce a comparative study of the impacts of oil and gas production over time. With few identifiable benefits beyond corporate social responsibility projects often disconnected from local development priorities, communities are growing angrier at their loss of livelihoods, increased social ills, and dispossession from land and ocean. Assuming that others must be benefiting from the petroleum resources being extracted near their communities, there is growing frustration in the region with the Ghana's hydrocarbon industry.