Divestment of oil and gas assets in Nigeria need not be complex and protracted

For years now, Nigeria has witnessed a flurry of divestments of international oil companies (IOCs) from their onshore and shallow water assets in the Niger Delta. The pace of the divestment is accelerating. On May 3, 2024, the regulator of the country’s upstream oil sector announced that international oil companies, including Shell Petroleum Development Company, Nigeria Agip Oil Company, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, and Equinor, were set to divest their investments in a total of 26 oil blocks in Nigeria and, in virtually all of the cases,