Maritime Rights

GHANA is in the process of preparing a proposal to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) for an extension of the country’s maritime rights beyond 200 nautical miles.
The country hopes to strike more oil in the future, if its maritime rights of continental shelf is extended by an additional 150 nautical miles as accepted under Article 76 of UNCLOS.
“The International Seabed Authority (ISA) report of 2000 indicates that Ghana has an Extended Legal Continental Shelf (ELCS) potential of eight billion barrels of oil equivalent,” the Minister of Lands, Forestry & Mines, Mrs Esther Obeng Dapaah, said at a Desktop Study review conducted by the Commonwealth Secretariat in Accra on Wednesday.
The study was on the extension of the continental shelf and maritime rights of Ghana.
Mrs Dapaah said the significance of the continental shelf as a source of mineral resources continued to attract the attention of governments.
“The seabed in general abounds in mineral resources such as phosphate, gold, platinum, chromate and manganese nodules,” she stated, hinting that the right to explore and exploit resources within that zone would be exclusive to Ghana, if claimed under the tenets of UNCLOS.
She said the deadline for the submission of reports to claim an extension of outer limits of the continental shelf of Ghana would end by May 13, 2009 and it was in line with these developments that the government of Ghana commissioned the Ghana National Continental Shelf Delineation Project (GNCSDP) to see to the timely execution of the extension process.
Mrs Dapaah said in view of the seriousness of the project, the government had made budgetary allocation for data acquisition and the project secretariat had completed the Desktop Study and was in the process of publishing the base points, which would define the country’s baseline from which all measurement seaward would be referred to.
The review of the Desktop Study, done by a former Commissioner of the Commonwealth Secretariat, Dr K. Hinz, highlighted major issues on the country’s preparedness under the tenets of the UNCLOS to extend the country’s maritime rights.
Dr Hinz said previous studies conducted indicated that Ghana could extend its continental shelf eastward but could not extend toward the West, where oil exploration was currently on-going.
He said the sedimentation of the seabed would have to be similar to that of the sedimentation in-land before the extension would be approved, hinting that it was possible for Ghana to extend its territorial waters further for future generations to explore the country’s resources beyond 200 nautical miles.
The Project Coodinator for GNCSDP, Mr Lawrence Apaalse, said in line with Article 74 and 83 of UNCLOS, the project secretariat had successfully held two meetings with the Nigerian Boundary Commission (NBC) to discuss their common eight-nautical mile maritime boundary.
“Documentation on this boundary would be concluded this year but Nigeria has already reached an agreement with Benin on their common maritime boundary and so Benin would be involved in the final meeting to define the baseline,” he said.
He said the secretariat, in July, this year, held a meeting with Cote d’Ivoire and hoped to hold another meeting in October to delineate its Western maritime boundary.