According to Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, the planned gold for oil barter arrangement is expected to save the government roughly US$3 billion in foreign money per year.

He claims that the policy's goal of stockpiling domestically mined gold in return for finished petroleum products will lessen the need for foreign currency to pay for the annual imports of petroleum products worth around US$3 billion.

"As a result, we will avoid spending $3 billion on foreign exchange since the Bank of Ghana won't need it.

The pressure on the cedi is instantly relieved as a result, and the currency will depreciate much, much less as a result, he said.

This comes on the back of the Russia-Ukraine war, which continues to impact the global oil market.

For instance, as early as February this year oil prices swung dramatically – pushing close to a major milestone of US$100 a barrel, largely attributed to the conflict in Eastern Europe.

Subsequently, the price of Russian crude fell following sanctions imposed by the EU and U.S.; although it is now selling more oil to countries like China and India, which have not imposed sanctions on Moscow.

On the demand side, the easing of COVID-19 restrictions globally has led to increasing demand for crude oil – thereby pushing prices on the world market to go up amid the shortfall of supply with Russia being ‘cut-out’.

More recently, prices are beginning to fall on the world market due to a contraction in global output.

According to the minister, the January to September 2022 receipts exclude US$14.61million petroleum receipts from Corporate Income Tax and PHF Income that spilled over from 2021 to 2022.

This brings the total petroleum receipt available for distribution to US$1.18billion. The Carried and Participating Interest (CAPI) contributed the highest, at 50.8 percent, to total petroleum receipts for the period; followed by Royalties, 23.9 percent; and Corporate Income Tax, 25.1 percent.

The rest include Surface Rental of 0.17 percent to petroleum receipts for the period.

However, the minister said there were no receipts from gas for the period under review. This is despite recording a total of 189,469.44 million standard cubic feet (Mscf) of gas produced in the first to third quarters of the year from the three producing fields.

Total crude oil production for January to September 2022 was 39.15 million barrels. This comprises Greater Jubilee’s output of 23.09 million barrels, Tweneboa Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) of 6.43 million barrels and Sankofa-Gye Nyame (SGN), 9.64 million barrels, representing 58.97, 16.41 and 24.62 percent respectively of the total output.

But the first to third-quarter of 2022 crude oil production of 39.15 million, according to the minister, is 5.73 percent lower than the production of 41.53 million barrels for the same period in 2021.

“The reduction in crude oil production is generally due to natural field decline from the TEN and SGN fields,” he added.

Meanwhile, of the total crude oil production for January to September 2022 of 39.15 million barrels, Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) on behalf of the state lifted 7.55 million barrels – comprising 4.71 million barrels from the Jubilee field, 0.99 million barrels from TEN field and 1.85 million barrels from Sankofa Gye Nyame (SGN) field.

Petroleum Receipts for January to September 2022

Total receipts from crude oil liftings only by GNPC for January-September was US$873.25million (GH₵8.34billion), comprising the 63rd – 67th Jubilee liftings; 20th and 21st TEN liftings; and the 9th and 10th liftings from the Sankofa Gye-Nyame field.