When a country announces its first oil strike in more than 20 years, it will usually draw only a flicker of initial interest from explorationists, who will immediately draw the conclusion that there must have been an awful lot of dusters drilled between the two successful wildcats.

But when some of the more pioneering E&P outfits already in that country start using words like "huge excitement" to describe their interest in what's going on there, those same explorationists will quickly start checking their research files to find out what all the fuss is about.
Hart's E&P has mentioned Africa more than once in recent issues - hardly surprising, since it has been the world's most successful exploration zone for the past year or more.
Ghana isn't, however, the country that immediately springs to mind. This fact of life may be changing though, due to Dana Petroleum's recent discovery of oil in the Western Tano contract area 20 miles offshore, in 380ft (115m) of water. The find has rekindled interest in an area that turns out to have a fairly substantial history of oil exploration.

Farm-in partner
Those looking to get in quick could do worse than take up Dana's offer of a farm-in partner to help finance future deepwater developments there, although the company insists it will go it alone in shallower waters, where its initial successful well was drilled.
Dana's news has prompted some questioning of other players in the country, and it turns out that US firm Nuevo Energy is also planning to drill several exploration wells there in the near future.
These companies though are by no means the first to try their luck in Ghana. Exploration began there offshore in the 1970s, with finds of both oil and gas by Phillips Petroleum. The company deemed the finds commercially unviable, however, and relinquished its acreage in 1982. Since then, the Ghana National Petroleum Co. has been extracting 6,000 b/d from the Saltpond field.
Recent concession awards have helped to spark the renewed interest in Ghana's waters. In 1997 Hunt Oil was awarded the Cape Three Points Southwest block, but an initial exploration well came up dry. A consortium consisting of Nuevo Energy and Yukong of South Korea won the Cape Three Points East block.

Nuevo was also awarded the 2.7 million Accra/Keta concession, where it is now planning an exploration well. A consortium of Dana Petroleum and Seafield Resources was meanwhile awarded the Cape Three Points West block.
When exploration got under way, Dana struck lucky with the WT-1X well, which unearthed a 150ft oil column in a channel sand sequence. A drill stem test flowed clean oil of approximately 20°API, with flow rates of up to 1,000 b/d.
The company believes production could begin in the next 2 or 3 years, if further testing in the area shows promising results.
A source said: "We will be doing a thorough examination of the 3D seismic survey we have carried out. We are also looking at carrying out a further 3D survey in the deepwater area where most of our acreage lies, in the second or third quarter of the year." He said more appraisal well drilling would take place toward the end of 2000 or the beginning of 2001.
"This discovery is hugely important for Ghana since no new discoveries have been made for some 20 years. There is huge excitement about it out there. It has the potential to be a big boost for the Ghanaian economy," he added.
The discovery is close to acreage bordering the Ivory Coast, and shows similar geological qualities to areas where significant finds have already been made.
Houston-based Santa Fe Energy Resources signed an exploration agreement for the Block 6 Volta River estuary area in June, 1997.
Nuevo will drill an exploration well in the Accra/Keta block in the fourth quarter of this year. A company spokeswoman said 3D seismic had already been carried out, and processing of the results was expected to be completed by June.
"We're taking a close look at what is happening offshore Ghana, and we're getting pretty excited about the prospects," she added.
No one's predicting an Angolan-style rush right now, but Ghana's prospects seem more than bright.