The Saltpond decommissioning project's consultant contracts were awarded, and there have been allegations of procurement violations relating to those contracts, according to the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).
The project's procurement procedure was clarified in a 10-point statement that GNPC made on Friday in response to the accusations.
The Corporation stressed that the facts underlying the contract awards had been distorted in a news story by one Thibault Lanchon of the Africa Intelligence media outlet, a subsidiary of Phillipe Vasset's Indigo Publications.
It was mentioned that the Saltpond Field, which was found in 1970 and started producing in October 1978, saw a number of shutdowns as a result of falling output, which ultimately resulted in a total shutdown in 2015.
Response
In addition, it stated that the Ghanaian government responded to the decision to decommission the Saltpond Field by GNPC, which was chosen by the government to oversee the project.
The Saltpond Field Decommissioning Contract was signed by GNPC and Hans & Co. Oil and Gas Limited, the selected decommissioning contractor, on January 12, 2022.
Given its lack of decommissioning expertise, GNPC stated that it wanted a project management consultant to oversee quality assurance and control for the Saltpond Field Decommissioning Project (SFDP).
The statement claims that on October 19, 2021, GNPC submitted an application for single-source procurement; however, following an internal assessment, the company later cancelled the contract for legal reasons.
Following a thorough evaluation in July 2022, according to GNPC, it reapplied to the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) for a project management consultant, choosing this time to use an open competitive tender technique on the advice of PPA.
Interest
Only two partnerships, Ensol Energy Ghana Limited (Ensol), TSB Offshore Inc. (TSB), PAP Energy Limited, and Luy Resources, filed bids during the Request for Proposal (RFP) stage out of the three companies that indicated interest, according to the statement.
According to the announcement, the Ensol-TSB partnership was chosen to get the contract by GNPC following a careful examination of all submitted offers.
"On March 7, 2023, Ensol notified GNPC of the withdrawal of its partner, TSB, from the project management consultancy contract and proposed a replacement," the statement read.
Ensol claims that TSB chose to prioritise other contracts it had over the project management consultancy contract since the procurement procedure took so long, spanning from the filing of tenders in October 2022 to contract execution in January 2023 at the latest.
Nowhere in the correspondence between GNPC and Ensol is it implied that any misconduct on the part of anybody associated with GNPC caused TSB's withdrawal; thus, anyone making such an assertion must back it up with specific examples.
The internal due diligence procedure for GNPC is now reviewing Ensol's request to substitute another company for TSB.
The claim that the PPA opposed Ensol's planned new partner is thus untrue.
blogpay
Total Comments: 0