Ghana Looks to Capitalize on Oil Discovery, Avoid Petro-Curse

Ghana Looks to Capitalize on Oil Discovery, Avoid Petro-Curse

ACCRA, Ghana -- When London-based Tullow Oil announced last month that it had discovered oil off the country's west coast, a few Ghanaians thanked God for the blessing.

Others, including President John Kufuor, reveled in the prospect that Ghana's precious new resource would fuel faster growth and create more jobs. Kufuor suggested that oil would transform his country, which experiences 12-hour power cuts every two of three days, into an African tiger.

Even government critics considered the find of up to 600 million barrels of reserves at the West Cape Three Points block, operated by Kosmos Energy of Texas, to be a positive development.

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