ENI/VITOL dispute: Ghana won, ignore false claims on social media – Kow Essuman

Counsel to the President of the Republic, Kow Essuman, has in a post on his Twitter page, presented the facts as captured in the 145-page decision in the matter of an arbitration under the 1976 Arbitration Rules of the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) between ENI Ghana Exploration and Production Limited and Vitol Upstream Ghana Limited versus the Republic of Ghana and Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC).

In his brief on the decision of the commission, Kow Essuman pointed out that non of the financial claims made by the claimants (ENI and Vitol) was granted. Essentially,  Ghana and the GNPC won the abetrative action filed by ENI Ghana Exploration and Production Limited and Vitol Upstream Ghana Limited.

He therefore called on Ghanaians to ignore all misinformation and disinformation by any institution or persons trying to twist the facts of the commission’s decision.

“This is the operative part of the arbitration award. In other words, the most important part of the arbitration award which will be implemented by the parties to the arbitration. As is evident from paragraph 489, the arbitration tribunal dismissed all the reliefs of ENI/Vitol. However, the Tribunal declared that the way the unitisation directives were issued breached the petroleum agreement.

“What this means is that Ghana has to issue new Unitisation Directives which do not breach the Petroleum Agreement. The Tribunal also ordered Ghana to pay its share of the arbitration costs being €189,900 to ENI/Vitol. The parties to the arbitration are also to bear their own costs,” Kow Essuman stated in his post.

“For the avoidance of doubt and to dispel any mischief from certain quarters, which I have seen circulating on social media, please note that there was no monetary damages awarded against Ghana. ENI/Vitol’s claim of $7bn was dismissed entirely. It is instructive to note that ENI/Vitol claimed $7bn in their Statement of Claim submitted to the Tribunal.

“Ghana, through its Attorney-General, challenged the figures submitted in support of the said claim at the arbitration hearing in Paris. As a result of that challenge, ENI/Vitol reduced the figured from $7bn to $915mn in their post-hearing brief submitted to the Tribunal in November 2023. As stated above, the Tribunal dismissed the claim for monetary damages entirely. We have one Republic called Ghana, let’s be accurate in reporting facts,” the learned lawyer Kow Essuman further stated.

Reporting by Wilberforce Asare in Accra

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