Five Indigenous Companies Bid For $3bn Shell’s Onshore Oilfields

Five indigenous oil and gas companies are set to bid for Shell’s onshore oilfields before January 2022 ends.

According to documents and source privy to the process, the sales of the oilfields has been estimated to fetch up to $3 billion.

Shell met with President Muhammadu Buhari-led government in 2021 to discuss selling its stake in the onshore fields.

The company has plans to sell its onshore fields which have been active since the 1930s, as part of a global drive to reduce its carbon emissions.

According to banking sources, Shell’s stakes in 19 oil mining leases in Nigeria’s onshore oil and gas joint venture (SPDC) are valued at $2 billion to $3 billion.

The company has struggled in Nigeria for years due to the spills in the Niger Delta, pipeline theft and sabotage as well as operational issues, leading to costly repairs and high-profile lawsuits.

A further report revealed that the sale of the onshore has drawn interest from independent indigenous oil and gas firms including Seplat Energy, Sahara Group, Famfa Oil, Troilus Investments Limited and Niger Delta Explo­ration and Production (NDEP).

International oil companies are not expected to take part in the bidding process which will end by January 31, 2022.

Sources claimed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could also choose to exercise its right to preempt any sale to a third company.

The company said it was un­clear whether potential bidders could raise sufficient funds as many international banks and investors have become wary about oil and gas assets in Nigeria due to concerns about environmental issues and corruption.

Some African and Asian banks, however, are still willing to finance fossil fuel opera­tions in the region, they said.

Troilus has hired Nigeria focused Africa Bridge Capital management to raise up to $3 billion for the assets.

The document also said any buyer of Shell’s assets will also need to show it can deal with future damage to the oil infrastructure which has ravaged the Niger Delta in recent years.

The Federal Government had last month said it will scrutinise oil companies that will bid for the takeover of assets that Shell and other oil majors will be divesting from in the country.

The Minister of State for Pe­troleum, Chief Timipre Sylva, disclosed this on Wednesday at a breakfast meeting organised by the African Energy Future in Houston, Texas, U.S.

At a separate business meet­ings with top managements of Chevron and Schlumberger at their headquarters, in Houston, Texas, Sylva said the government would carry out due diligence in the selection and eventual approval of any company that would take over the assets from which these companies intend to divest.

According to him, the previous practice whereby companies are just allowed to purchase strategies without verifying their capacity to oper­ate such assets would no longer be tolerated.

He added: “In the past, com­panies were just allowed to buy assets that they had no capacity to operate. We would no longer allow that to happen again be­cause government is the ulti­mate loser. If they are not able to operate such assets optimally, the government won’t be able to gen­erate revenue from such assets.

“So, we are going to do our best to ensure that we get the best value from these assets,” Sylva said.

He told Chevron and Schlumberger team that the gov­ernment would create the en­abling environment for them to increase their investments in Nigeria.

He noted that with the pas­sage of the Petroleum Indus­try Act (PIA), Nigeria would increase the incentives for investments in the oil and gas sector of the economy.

“With PIA, we now have the enabling laws that protect and make the operating environ­ment more attractive.

“With the passage of the PIA, there are a lot of interests in the oil and gas sector in Ni­geria today.

“The responses we have gotten from investors so far are quite good. Everybody is quite happy,” Sylva added.

He said that the Nigerian government while willing to en­courage new investors, would open its doors first to those who already have business and in­vestments in the country.

The minister while speaking on cost optimisation, security of oil and gas assets, and do­mestic gas utilisation, called for more investments in the sector.

This article was originally published on Naija News