Ghana moves to become hub for Rapid Oil Spill Response - myjoyonline.com

Posted - From: Ghana | J. Ato Kobbie, Managing Editor |The Business Analyst          Last Updated: April 6, 2012, 8:30 pm 

Even as Ghanaians wonder about the level of the country’s preparedness in responding to oil and oil-related spillage, environmental experts are already looking at Ghana becoming the hub for rapidly responding to such incidents in the West African sub-region.
Disclosing this to participants on the second day of the three-day Ghana Summit on oil and gas held at the Accra International Conference Centre (AICC) last week, Mr. Kojo Agbenor-Efunam, Principal Programme Officer (Oil and Gas) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said recent industry activities and discoveries in other West African countries such as Liberia and Sierra Leone, have increased risk levels and therefore stakeholders have been discussing the need to pool resources together to effectively respond to any spillages.
In a presentation that focused on Ghana’s capacity building and preparedness to dealing with oil spillage, Mr. Agbenor-Efunam said following initial studies undertaken as far back as 1986, with the assistance of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to assess the country’s risk level, the country started building capacity for dealing with any eventual oil spillage. 
According to him, the study, which covered the country’s 550 kilometres of coastline, helped in determining the ecological diversity, the brisk economic activities along the coast, which is densely populated with important cities, revealed the country was at risk and risk zones were determined.

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