Ghanaian oil tycoon Kevin Okyere confirms Dubai detention and $50 million loan in court

Kevin Okyere, founder of Springfield Exploration and Production Limited, confirmed under cross-examination in Ghana's High Court that he was detained in Dubai and that a Springfield-linked entity drew down $50 million from a $100 million loan facility extended by Swiss oil trading company Petraco Oil Company SA, while maintaining throughout that the underlying dispute is a commercial matter and not fraud.

The admissions came during proceedings connected to Okyere's attempt to hold a publication in contempt for allegedly breaching a court injunction and damaging his reputation with headlines referencing a fraud narrative and alleged arrest warrants. The cross-examination produced a series of on-record concessions that give the dispute a sharper factual outline even as its legal classification remains contested.

On the Dubai detention, Okyere's response was unambiguous. When counsel suggested that his detention there was true, he replied: "Yes. However, publications the Herald made were all false." He does not deny the detention; he contests the framing and the conclusions attached to it.

On the loan, he drew a consistent line between personal and corporate liability. Asked whether he had taken a loan from Petraco, he said: "I Kevin Okyere have not taken a loan personally." He confirmed that the second plaintiff in the proceedings had taken the loan and acknowledged being both a director and shareholder of that entity. When pressed on whether he personally guaranteed $50 million, he denied it: "No. I did not personally guarantee 50 million dollars from Petraco Oil Company."

He described the structure of the arrangement as a commercial facility in which $50 million was advanced to Springfield, with a 10 percent lien on Springfield shares as collateral. "This is a pure commercial transaction," he said.

On the quantum of the debt, Okyere made an admission that anchors the figure in the public record. The facility agreement carried a $100 million headline value, he confirmed, but the actual drawdown was half of that: "Although the facility agreement is for 100 million dollars, Springfield only drew down 50 million dollars. Therefore, the loan is 50 million dollars and not 100 million dollars." When pressed on repayment, he said he would need to check with the finance team.

The borrower's default status was also confirmed. "Yes. However, it is a commercial transaction and no fraud has been committed," Okyere said when asked directly. On whether Petraco had accused him of fraud, he redirected: "No. I read from the Herald Newspaper and website which claimed that I have committed fraud."

The political dimension of the case surfaced in Okyere's account of how Ghana's state institutions had handled related petitions. He told the court that both the Criminal Investigations Department and the Attorney General's office had investigated and concluded that the matter was commercial in nature. "Their petition has been fully investigated by the CID and the Attorney General and they stated that it is a commercial matter," he said.

That characterisation sits alongside public statements from the Economic and Organised Crime Office confirming that EOCO has two active investigations involving Springfield — one based on a petition against the company, and another related to the Springfield-BOST matter — leaving the question of how Ghana formally classifies the dispute still unresolved.

The background to the case involves allegations from Petraco that Springfield, along with Ghanaian partner GMP Energy Limited and their executives, diverted proceeds from crude oil liftings under their joint venture Petraco Energies DMCC amounting to $94 million. Petraco also alleges the $50 million loan, signed in February 2023 and intended to finance a unitisation project involving Eni Ghana, was obtained under false pretences and that the unitisation was never realistically viable. Springfield has consistently denied the fraud characterisation.

Okyere also addressed UK proceedings during cross-examination. He denied personally appearing in a UK court in 2024, 2025 or 2026 but acknowledged being served with a court summons from a London court related to Petraco — a standard feature of cross-border commercial disputes migrating toward enforcement.

Okyere founded Springfield in 2008 and built it into one of Ghana's most prominent indigenous upstream oil companies, securing the West Cape Three Points Block 2 licence in 2016 and making the Afina discovery — approximately 1.5 billion barrels of offshore oil — which became the centrepiece of the company's unitisation ambitions. His net worth has been estimated at between $200 million and $460 million, though those figures are not publicly verified.

The case will now turn on whether the court treats the publications Okyere challenged as contemptuous, and on the documentary record that both sides continue to contest. EOCO's publicly stated investigations add a parallel track that the courtroom proceedings have not yet directly addressed.