Ghanaian youth have been assured that hundreds of job opportunities are expected to be available when the Petroleum Hub development project takes off.
The Chief Executive Officer of the Petroleum Hub Development Corporation Charles Owusu who gave the assurance in separate radio interviews in Takoradi on Thursday ahead of the official sod-cutting ceremony for the project on Monday, August 19, said the project is expected to create jobs over 780,000 with an estimated export tax of about $1.56 billion by 2030.
Adding, that all that will be required of the youth is to be ready for the opportunities since jobs will be available for both skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled youth.
“The project upon completion is expected not to only create jobs over 780,000 but also increase Ghana’s GDP by about 70 percent” he noted.
The government through the Petroleum Development Hub Corporation has acquired a 20,000-acre land in the Jomoro municipality of the Western Region to be developed into a petrochemical hub.
When completed, it will contain 3 oil refineries with a capacity of 300,000 barrels each, 5 petrochemical plants to support the pharmaceuticals, agriculture, automobile and other industries. Storage tanks with 10m cubic meters and a jetty as well ancillaries.
Touching on the potential of the project, Mr. Owusu was optimistic that the petroleum hub project has the potential to be the game changer for the Ghanaian economy, therefore the participation of local businesses is essential.
“We are aiming to make Ghana the energy provider for the African continent and not only that, the world at large would also consider us as a go-to country for petroleum products and this will have a huge impact on the local economy” he added.
Mr. Owusu, who is also a petroleum economist further noted with the all necessary regulatory processes completed and stakeholder consultations done with the host communities and all those who matter, the project will have a smooth take-off.
“The MOU with the consortium was signed in December 2019 and the negotiation for the first phase took almost 2 years, we have engaged our host communities on several occasions so we have done some appreciable amount of work behind the scenes to get to this stage,” he said.
He also revealed that the Jomoro municipality was selected based on several factors including the depth of the sea which is between 16-27 meters, a range which is above the international standards. Adding that after the feasibility it was also realized that the project would not require lot of communities being displaced.
“We want to develop Jomoro into a smart city and this could make Western Region the business hub of Ghana. After the feasibility, we realized we didn’t need to displace a lot of the communities. In fact, it was only 2-3 communities which would be affected. A fourth community was only added for futuristic purposes.” he said.
The project has been structured into three phases with the first phase starting in September 2024 which will see the clearing of the land, construction of drains and other civil works. Then it will take a break in December as Ghana prepares for a major election and resume in March 2025 due to the Chinese holiday in February.
Source: myinfotoday.com
