Surface Rental arrears in the petroleum sector rose sharply to US$2.82million by mid-2025, even as collections increased by 14.3 percent above the Ghana Revenue Authority’s (GRA) full-year estimate of US$755,235, the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) said in its half-year report.
The arrears amounted to US$2.82million at the end of H1 2025 compared to US$439,011 in H1 2024.
GRA collected US$863,046 in Surface Rentals by end-June 2025, one of the country’s five petroleum revenue streams.
The petroleum revenue watchdog attributed this uptick mainly to payments of outstanding balances by Goil Upstream Limited, Springfield E&P, OPCO and Base Energy. Of 13 licenced operators only eight made payments during the period under review, PIAC said.
The Committee added that GRA has initiated enforcement measures to recover all outstanding arrears, including those owed by three companies whose petroleum agreements were revoked by the Energy Minister for breaching contractual terms.
They are UB Resources Limited, Britannia-U and Swiss African Oil Company Limited, with total outstanding Surface Rental arrears of US$1,728,124.
PIAC urged the GRA, Petroleum Commission (PC), Bank of Ghana (BoG), Ministry of Energy and other related institutions to intensify collaboration in recovering the arrears.
The arrears come amid a broader slump in the sector, as the country’s crude oil production declined by 25.92 percent from 24,857,477.52 barrels (bbls) in H1 2024 to 18,415,410.74 bbls in H1 2025.
This resulted in a 56 percent drop in total petroleum receipts for the period – from US$840,765,266 in H1 2024 to US$370,343,681 in H1 2025 lodged into the Petroleum Holding Fund (PHF).
The revenues were derived from Corporate Taxes, Surface Rentals (Acreage Fees), Crude Oil Liftings and Interest on the PHF of the total receipts, Carried and Additional Participating Interest (CAPI) contributed US$178,481,075, Corporate Income Tax (CIT) generated US$148,753,289 while Royalties yielded US$40,148,118. Interest on the PHF yielded US$2,098,154 and Surface Rental Payments amounted to US$863,046.
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For the period under review, revenues from CAPI contributed the highest share of 48 percent followed by CIT (40 percent) while Royalties accounted for 10.8 percent. Revenues from Surface Rentals and Interest on the PHF each constituted less than one percent of total receipts.
PIAC said: “With passage of the Petroleum Revenue Management Regulations (PRMR), 2019 (L.I 2381), GRA continued its vigorous drive to recover all outstanding payments in respect of Surface Rental Taxes”.
The Authority, it added, has extended its search beyond Ghana’s jurisdiction for terminated Petroleum Agreements (PAs) through the Exchange of Information (EOI) Unit to recover tax liabilities from the three defaulting companies.
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