Ivory Coast to File Legal Complaint over Ghana Border Row

 

Ivory Coast said on Friday it would file a complaint with an international jurisdiction after Ghana took legal action to resolve a dispute over the two nations' maritime border in an area rich in hydrocarbons.

British firm Tullow Oil has licences in Ghanaian waters near to the boundary disputed by the West African neighbours.

Bruno Kone, a spokesman for Ivory Coast's government, would not give details on where the complaint would be filed.

"We will take this before the competent jurisdiction, but we are not going to say more for the moment," he told Reuters.

Earlier this week, Ghanaian Attorney General Marrieta Brew Appiah-Oppong said Ghana had filed a suit under the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea after 10 bilateral meetings failed to resolve the issue.

A resolution is crucial for oil and gas exploration and it could end any uncertainty for Tullow, which first discovered the Tweneboa, Enyenra, and Ntomme (TEN) cluster development in 2009 in Ghana's Deepwater Tano licence close to the disputed area.

In its statement, Ivory Coast said the dispute over the border area would not in any way undermine relations between the two countries, their people and the two presidents.

Ivory Coast accused Ghana in April 2013 of encroaching on a part of its maritime territory rich in hydrocarbons.

Tullow's partners in the TEN project include Anadarko , Kosmos Energy, Sabre Oil & Gas Holdings Ltd as well as the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation.

Ghana has said oil firms could continue to operate during the arbitration process, which could take up to three years.

(Reporting by Loucoumane Coulibaly and Joe Bavier; Writing by David Lewis; Editing by Gareth Jones)