AGI launches second oil and gas exhibition

THE Association of Ghana Industries (AGI),has launched the 2011 edition of its oil and gas exhibition aimed at promoting local content development.
The event, scheduled for October 11-13, this year, will be on the theme: “Promoting local content development in the oil and gas industry: AGI engineering value chain dimension” and is expected to create a platform for local companies interested in the sector to interact with the renowned international industry players.
At a media launch in Accra, the AGI President, Nana Owusu Afari, said the upcoming event was aimed at creating a platform for Ghanaian businesses to “rip from the simmering benefits of the oil and gas industry in the country.”
The AGI last year organised a similar event with collaborations from the industry players such as Tullow, GNPC, the Ministry of Energy, among others and Nana Owusu said the success of that event informed the association’s decision to make it an annual affair.
According to him, Ghanaian businesses were eager to participate in the country’s oil and gas sector but lacked the needed expertise, finance and resource persons to enable it to do so.
He was, however, optimistic that events such as the AGI Ghana Oil and Gas Exhibition and conference would “help link local businesses with international players as we invite these global major players to the conference.”
Nana Afari disagreed with suggestions that the AGI was placing too much attention on the country’s oil and gas sector to the neglect of the other sectors, a situation that the industry experts fear could likely see the country swimming in the much talked about Dutch disease.
“We are not shifting attention at all; But we will not also leave it to the others,” the President said, and added that the oil and gas find was only “a bonus” to the country’s economic movers.
He said the country’s oil and gas industry had huge potentials for the nation’s businesses and “we think we should not leave it to the foreigners alone.”
The Director of Operations at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), Mr Thomas Manu, lauded the AGI for such an initiative and described it as “the surest way that the country can adopt to help make the discovery a blessing rather than a curse.”