[ 2015-03-31 ]

Oil fight: ITLOS must “throw out” Ivory Coast’s injunction move – Ayikoi Otoo
The International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea
(ITLOS) must “throw out” Ivory Coast’s
application for an injunction on oil exploration
activities by Tullow Oil plc in the
Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme (TEN) oilfields over which
the Francophone West African country is fighting
with Ghana, former Attorney General Nii Ayikoi
Otoo has told Morning Starr’s Kafui Dey on Starr
103.5FM.

According to Mr Ayikoi Otoo, stopping exploration
activities now would be damaging to both Ghana and
Tullow Oil plc. He also believes the pendulum
tilts in Ghana’s favour.

“There are a lot of things that would influence
a tribunal in taking a decision one way or the
other: one of them is the balance of
convenience.…They looked on while we spent so
much, so at this stage why must we be stopped.

“Allow us to continue while the case also goes
on because you could be compensated in damages.
But to say: ‘Stop now’, when we’ve gone so
far, the equities and the law appear to weigh in
our favour, so it seems to me that the tribunal
should look at how much money has been sunk and
the damage that will be caused if this thing
should come to a standstill pending a final
determination.

“…So what happens for three years? We are
talking about the corrosive nature of the sea and
all that. All the machines there will get damaged
if there is no maintenance for three years and all
that so I think that in terms of balance of
convenience, I think the application they have
sent there should be thrown out,” Mr Otoo said.


His concerns are in tandem with those of Ghana’s
current Attorney General who said at the second
day of the hearing Monday that Ghana would be
dealt “irreparable damage” and “irremediable
injustice”, if the International Tribunal of the
Law of the Sea (ITLOS) in Hamburg rules in favour
of Ivory Coast by determining that the Anglophone
West African country stops all oil exploration
activities in the disputed oilfields until the
Court makes a final determination.

“One of the more surprising things that was
suggested yesterday [Sunday] by Cote d’Ivoire
was that Ghana should diffuse the situation
pending determination by the tribunal, by stopping
work in the area.

“We agree that pending determination of a
dispute, a party and a tribunal should not take
steps that are likely to aggravate it. It is, we
suggest, clear that Cote d’Ivoire’s attempt to
prevent the continuation of the existing activity
is likely to seriously aggravate this dispute and
make its resolution much harder.

“In short, the measures sought by Cote
d’Ivoire would guarantee disproportionate
irreparable damage to Ghana. They would aggravate
this dispute and they would cost irremediable
injustice,” Marietta Brew Appiah-Oppong, who is
leading Ghana’s legal team argued.
“On behalf of Ghana, I therefore formally
request that their application for provisional
measures be declined.”

Meanwhile Ivory Coast has cast doubts over
maritime maps and data being used by Ghana to
argue out its case as far as the dispute over the
TEN oil fields operated by Tullow Oil is
concerned.

An external lawyer for Ivory Coast said on the
second day of the hearing that: “Ghana cannot be
trusted to have independently secured these maps
and the data without Ivory Coast having
copies.”

“Since these maps are in the sole possession of
Ghana, they should be prevented from using them in
this litigation, because the authenticity of these
maps cannot be independently verified,” the
Lawyer said.

Ivory Coast argued at the tribunal on Sunday that
allowing Ghana to continue oil exploration in the
disputed offshore area pending the ruling would do
irreparable damage to its economy and energy
policy.

London-listed Tullow Oil is due to finish work on
its TEN project in the disputed zone and start
pumping oil by mid-2016. A final ruling by the
court on the dispute could be in three years.

In its first round of oral arguments, Ivory Coast
said Ghana was accelerating development in the
zone, which would leave it to face a fait
accompli.

Reuters reported Sunday that Michael Wood, a
special adviser to the Ivorian delegation, said
that not granting the suspension "could
irreparably compromise Cote d'Ivoire's entitlement
to formulate and pursue a national policy with
respect to the use of natural resources".

Paul Reichler, a member of Ghana's legal team,
said that Ivory Coast had for at least the last 40
years accepted the demarcation that Accra
considers to be the boundary between the two
nations.

"There was an agreed border separating their
respective maritime territories, and it consisted
of an equidistant line whose specific coordinates
were identified and were reflected in their oil
concession agreements," he said.

The argument was rejected at the tribunal by
Ibrahima Diaby, director-general of hydrocarbons
for Ivory Coast's energy ministry.

"I regret that Ghana should rewrite our shared
history by asserting that Cote d'Ivoire expressly
accepted as a maritime boundary between the two
states the line along which oil blocks were
granted by the two states," he said.

Ghana is seeking a dismissal of Ivory Coast's
request for a provisional suspension.

Ghana downplayed fears of a possible suspension of
the TEN project earlier this month after Ivory
Coast introduced its request, saying a ruling in
favour of the Ivorian government was "highly
unlikely".

But Tullow lost over 200 million pounds ($308
million) of its market value on March 2 over
concerns that the boundary dispute could delay its
TEN project.

Ghana’s legal team argued Sunday that Tullow Oil
plc risks making huge losses if the Court upheld
Ivory Coast’s application for a suspension of
further exploration until a ruling is made.

The firm recently said it was informed by the
Government of Ghana that Côte d'Ivoire had
applied to the International court, which is
hearing the oil boundary dispute to restrain
further exploration until the case is determined.

In a statement issued early March this year, the
oil exploration firm said it “understands that a
decision on this application for provisional
measures should be handed down before the end of
April 2015.”

In September last year, Appiah-Oppong said at a
press conference that the young oil producer is
certain of winning the arbitration case it filed
against Côte d'Ivoire over the matter.

“We’re extremely confident in our case. I
don’t think we’ll lose. Many laws support the
position we’ve taken so I’m confident that it
will go our way”, Appiah-Oppong told
Journalists.

She said the line drawn to delineate Ghana’s
maritime territory from Côte d'Ivoire has
“existed for decades” since the 1950s “so
Ghana is not ready to shift its position”.

Ghana resorted to the International Court after
more than 10 rounds of negotiations with Côte
d'Ivoire since 2008 without success of resolving
the impasse.

The young oil producing country of 25 million
people wants the International Tribunal on the Law
of the Sea to declare that it has not encroached
on the Ivorian territorial waters in the
exploration of oil.

Appiah-Oppong said the arbitration process started
by Ghana is not a “hostile” move intended to
create tension between the two neighbours.

“This is not a hostile act. All we’re are
doing is to bring certainty and finality to the
matter. It does not mean we’re at loggerheads or
the two heads of state are fighting”, Ghana’s
chief lawyer said.

The case, according to the AG will take at least
three years. The two parties are to agree on three
independent arbitrators by mutual consent. The
president of United Nations Convention on the Law
of the Sea (UNCLOS), to which both countries
belong, will be compelled to appoint the
arbitrators should the two parties fail to reach
an agreement on the arbitrators.

The decision of the arbitrators will be final.
There will be no room for appeal. The Minister
said all Ghana’s operations in oil fields that
fall within the disputed boundary will continue
operating in the interim.

Energy Minister Emmanuel Amah Kofi Buah said at
the press conference that the claim of Côte
d'Ivoire indeed affects some of Ghana’s
concessions.

Also Minister of Communication, Dr Edward Omane
Boamah said despite the warm relationship between
Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire, the former British
colony has “a sacred duty of protecting our
natural resources not just for this generation but
also generations unborn”.

Ghana filed the suit based on Article 287 Annex
VII of the 1982 UNCLOS.

The statement of claim avers, among other things,
that pursuant to articles 286 and 287 of the 1982
UNCLOS, and in accordance with Article 1 Annex 1,
the Republic of Ghana had served notice to the
Republic of The Ivory Coast to the effect that
“having failed to reach a settlement after
successive negotiations and exchange of views over
an extended period of time, Ghana has elected to
submit the dispute concerning the determination of
each maritime boundary with Cote d’Ivoire to the
arbitral procedure provided for under Annex VII of
UNCLOS”.

Ghana discovered oil in commercial quantities
offshore the Western Region in June 2007, but the
Ivorian authorities have been laying claim to the
discovery.

The dispute received wide media attention in the
past, resulting in leaders from both countries
engaging in talks to resolve their differences.

And to compound the issue, oil companies operating
in the oilfields have been receiving threatening
letters from The Ivory Coast asking them to leave
site.

Source - Starrfmonline

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