Upstream Oil and Gas in Ghana: Legal Frameworks and Emerging Practice

This book explores the myriad issues that play out in the upstream petroleum industry of Ghana from a legal perspective.

Focusing on Ghana as an emerging petroleum country, Thomas Kojo Stephens begins by examining whether the existing constitutional framework will be effective in governing the expanding oil and gas sector. Drawing on various approaches proffered by other experts in the field, Stephens looks at possible institutional structures that could be put in place and juxtaposes these ideas with the experience of Ghana to test the efficacy of these proposals. He also explores the types of contractual frameworks currently implemented in Ghana for comparison with other emerging petroleum economies, examining the barriers to effectiveness, novel provisions that must be incorporated, and lessons learned from other regions. Finally, the book highlights how vital it is for the Ghanaian State to monitor the use of petroleum revenue and make ethical investment decisions that prioritize the interests of Ghanaian citizens.

Upstream Oil and Gas in Ghana will be of great interest to students and scholars of energy law and policy, oil and gas management, and African Studies more broadly, as well as those working in the upstream petroleum industry.

Thomas Kojo Stephens is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Ghana School of Law and lectures in both the LLB and LLM Programs, lecturing among others, Conflict of Laws/Private International Law, Research Methodology, Energy Law, and Natural Resources Law, and supervises in the PhD Program.

He is a Senior Partner at Stobe Law and the Head of the Transactional, Energy Practice, as well as the Consultancy Group of the firm. He advises numerous entities in the petroleum sector and serves as principal consultant for a number of high-profile entities.

He is the jurisdictional author for a number of international publications in Petroleum Law and has written on different facets of the industry. He is an Advisory Board Member of the International Energy Law Advisory Group (IELAG), a Principal Trainer at the International Energy Law Training and Research Center (IELTRC), and was a Vice-Chairman of Ghana’s Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) from 2018 to 2020, a statutory body with oversight over the use of Ghana’s petroleum revenue.