Irish oil and gas firm Tullow has announced that it is still on target to achieve first oil in Ghana's Jubilee field by the end of the year.

Ghana Web reports that the company identifies Jubilee as a world-class field, while its rapid development of the field since discovering oil in June 2007 will set new standards in upstream operations.

During its drilling campaign, Tullow enjoyed a near-100 per cent success rate in the field, and it is now focusing on bringing oil to market and training local employees to support the country's nascent energy industry.

In a press briefing, the company announced that it plans to increase local participation from 80 per cent to 90 per cent of the total workforce via diverse oil and gas training initiatives.

"Unlike the Gulf of Mexico there is no hurricane season to disrupt production and of course the environmental conditions in Alaska are significantly more challenging," the company added, responding to concerns about the safety of deepwater drilling.

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