The Technical Director of the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC), Mark Agyemang, has said that the practice of oil-producing companies (OICs) in the country importing salt from other countries can be resolved if the Songhor Salt Project is revived fully.
He said salt, which is one of the key products in the production of oil, is mostly imported from Senegal, even though Ghana has the capacity to produce it locally.
“I know the government has been working to revive the Songhor Salt Project. That will go a long way to boost oil production in the country,” he said.
In an interview with the media on the sidelines of the launch of PIAC’s semi-annual report for 2020, Mr Agyemang was not able to quantify the amount of money that the OICs spend on importing salt into the country annually. It is thought that these companies spend millions of dollars importing the commodity.
The Songhor project
Songhor has about 34,775 acres of lagoon basin on the Atlantic Coast of Ghana, with the greatest potential for large-scale salt production in West Africa for export and industrial use.
Last year, Parliament approved three mining lease agreements granting mineral rights to an investor, Electrochem Ghana Limited, to dig for, mine and produce salt at Ada Songhor area in the Greater Accra Region.
The project, with a production capacity of over 200,000 tonnes, is expected not only to create employment for the people in the area but also to feed the petroleum industry with raw material for oil production.
In July 2007, Tullow Oil and Kosmos Energy discovered oil in commercial quantities in the Western Region, and in 2010, the country lifted its first oil cargo of 1.1million barrels.
In the last 10 years, the country has produced and exported about 420m barrels of oil.
