Ghana’s underexplored Keta Basin is moving closer to what could become its most consequential phase of oil and gas exploration in decades, with renewed government promotion, new seismic interpretation and, most importantly, a major international oil company now seeking acreage. The latest development is the decision by Ghana’s Ministry of Energy and Green Transition to approve Petrobras’ application to negotiate exploration contracts covering four offshore blocks in the Keta Basin. Petrobras – a majority Brazilian government owned Oil Company – announced on August 21 that it had entered direct negotiations with Ghana over the terms of those contracts.
Direct negotiations must settle technical, financial, fiscal and work-programme obligations. Under Ghana’s Petroleum (Exploration and Production) Act, petroleum agreements ordinarily follow a competitive tender process, although the Minister can authorize direct negotiations with a qualified company where the circumstances justify it. Importantly, an agreement does not become effective until ratified by Parliament.
The eventual terms are therefore likely to combine substantial exploration commitments with Ghana’s statutory participation requirements. Ghana’s framework provides for at least 15 percent initial participating carried interest for GNPC, with provision for an additional participating interest that becomes a paying interest after commercial discovery. Recent Ghanaian petroleum agreements also commonly include defined seismic and drilling obligations, minimum expenditure commitments, royalties, local-participation requirements and relinquishment provisions.
With regards to local participation foreign petroleum operators must ensure that an Indigenous Ghanaian Company (IGC) holds at least a 5 percent non-dilutable equity interest in the Petroleum Agreement. International operators are prohibited from directly procuring specific services. Services such as catering, bunkering, maritime security, shipping/civil works, financial accounting, and legal services are fully reserved for 100 percent Ghanaian-owned companies. Operators must submit a comprehensive Local Content Plan. This plan details employment succession, aiming for 70 percent to 80 percent Ghanaian representation in management and technical roles within 5 to 10 years of starting operations. Furthermore, annual budgets must allocate specific funds to local research and development to transfer deep water or onshore technological know-how to Ghanaian educational and technical entities
Instructively, Ghana’s 2025 Western Basin Block 01 agreement carries a seven-year exploration period, 15 percent GNPC carried interest, 5 percent additional interest and royalties of 10 percent on oil and 5 percent on gas, with options to purchase additional paying interest upon commercial discovery.
The Keta terms could differ materially because they will be negotiated for a frontier basin. For example, while the standard royalty rate is between four percent and 12.5 percent it is typically negotiated toward the lower end (e.g., 4 percent to 5 percent onshore or shallow water or 10 percent for deep water) to incentivize exploration in frontier basins.
This is significant because the Keta Basin has remained one of Ghana’s least tested petroleum provinces. The Petroleum Commission describes the Accra-Keta Basin as a roughly 33,900-square-kilometre Cretaceous pull-apart basin, extending offshore into the Atlantic and forming Ghana’s western continuation of the Dahomeyan embayment that stretches through Togo, Benin and western Nigeria. Yet exploration drilling has been sparse, with industry sources reporting only about six wells in the offshore Keta area since the 1970s and no commercial discovery to date.
To be sure, Ghana’s stringent regulatory framework makes exploration a costly venture. For instance upstream tax accounting requires strict ring-fencing by contract area and exploration or operational losses incurred in a separate block cannot be used to offset tax liabilities within a Keta Basin license area.
Besides, payments made to foreign subcontractors for technical and drilling services are subject to strict upstream withholding taxes unless explicitly exempted under a ratified treaty or specific stability agreement clause
There is, nevertheless, considerable exploration activity taking place beneath the headline-making Petrobras negotiations. In July, seismic-data specialist TGS signed an agreement with Ghana’s Petroleum Commission to construct a 25,300-square-kilometre 2D-cubed seismic volume covering the basin’s shelf and deep water areas. The project combines approximately 5,500 sq km of existing 3D seismic data and more than 14,700 km of 2D data, with final products expected in the first quarter of 2027.
This matters because inadequate subsurface information has been one of the principal obstacles to investment. Ghana has also approved a separate multi-client 3D seismic project covering approximately 13,900 sq km of the Accra-Keta Basin. Petroleum Commission data indicate that the Eastern Basin has only about 16 percent 3D seismic coverage, compared with 74 percent in Ghana’s Western Basin. The current programme is therefore not simply data collection: it is intended to turn a poorly understood frontier basin into an investable exploration proposition.
There is also an existing licence footprint. The Petroleum Commission lists the East Keta block, covering about 2,239 sq km, as having been awarded in July 2014 but currently being on hold under force majeure. Consequently, the Petrobras initiative is being viewed both as a potential revival of activity in the basin and as evidence that government is increasingly prepared to allocate previously inactive or open acreage to new explorers.
How likely are new licences?
Industry analysts now agree that the probability of new Keta Basin petroleum agreements being concluded appears high, particularly for the four blocks under Petrobras negotiations. This is no longer merely an expression of investor interest: the government has formally approved negotiations. Moreover, the Petroleum Commission’s 2026 business outlook explicitly identifies opening frontier basins and promoting exploration as government priorities, while its leadership has identified Accra-Keta as one of the areas requiring renewed exploration.
Are major discoveries likely?
The geological case is encouraging but still speculative. Petrobras itself considers the Keta geology sufficiently comparable to Brazil’s Equatorial Margin—a major frontier exploration province—to justify committing exploration resources. Industry geological work also points to deep-water fan systems, Cretaceous reservoirs and potentially effective source, reservoir and seal combinations.
However, the absence of a commercial discovery after decades of intermittent exploration is a powerful warning against assuming that geological promise equals commercial oil. Academic research published in 2026 still identifies the need for high-resolution seismic imaging and comprehensive petroleum-system modelling to establish reservoir and charge potential.
Many oil and gas industry analysts suspect therefore that while the probability of further exploration is high, the probability of a major commercial discovery in the next few years is only moderate. The critical change is that better seismic imaging should allow companies to select prospects far more intelligently. If the TGS and other seismic programmes reveal robust structures and Petrobras follows through with exploration drilling, the Keta Basin could produce a commercially significant discovery. But the first major test is likely to be whether the basin can finally convert its promising geological indications into a successful exploration well—not merely whether another licence is issued.
By: Toma Imirhe / businesspostonline
