Petroleum-induced disasters cause horrendous damage and devastation to the natural environment, destroying flora and fauna, and despite clean-up campaigns costing billions of dollars, the environmental and human impacts often remain decades later. The goal of this study is to identify and prioritise risk factors and the key capability improvement mechanisms that are critical for minimising any potential environmental disaster within the upstream petroleum sector of Ghana. A systematic literature review (n = 90 articles), validated by industry experts (n = 12), revealed several major underlying risk factors and a range of capability improvement mechanisms that are relevant to this study. A questionnaire was shared with stakeholder experts to gauge their opinions about each set of attributes. Analysis of participant responses (n = 78), using weighted average scores, reveals ‘risk management shortcomings’, ‘emergency preparedness planning challenges’, and ‘socio-environmental accountability’ are rated as the most critical risk minimisation indices, while ‘risk management’, ‘early detection and warning’, and ‘legal/regulatory mechanisms’ are the topmost capability interventions. Based on this information, the study concludes by suggesting direction towards the critical need to improve capability in the more technical and governance-oriented capability mechanisms comparative to the traditional functions of disaster response, for public sector institutions to achieve environmental disaster risk minimisation goals in Ghana’s upstream petroleum sector.