President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday backed the position of the Nigerian Upstream Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) in reversing consent earlier given for the Seplat/ExxonMobil deal, blaming the confusion on poor coordination among government agencies, a government spokesperson said.

The deal was for the acquisition of the entire shares of Mobil Oil Producing Unlimited, the Nigerian unit of American oil major, ExxonMobil at the cost of $1.28billion.

“It has become clear that the various agencies involved in the decision had not coordinated well among themselves and having looked at all of the facts with all of the ramifications, the president decided the position of the regulator is to be supported,” spokesperson Garba Shehu told PREMIUM TIMES Wednesday.

The NUPRC had on Monday said the proposed takeover of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited by Seplat, an indigenous oil firm, was a regulatory matter and it had notified ExxonMobil the transaction could not go through.

Read also: Seplat-ExxonMobil saga sends danger signals to oil investors

Related News

In its earlier letter to Seplat Energy Plc and Mobil Petroleum Nigeria Unlimited (MPNU), the ExxonMobil Nigerian unit, the NUPRC claimed the president withheld ministerial assent based on non-compliance with guidelines to transfer assets, failure to notify the Commission during all the stages and Seplat not being the right person to apply for Ministerial consent.

“Thus, regardless of the mode of the transaction, MPNU, remains, to all intents and purposes, the assignor under Nigerian law and is the proper person to bring an application for Ministerial consent to the transaction, not Seplat. Consequently, you are hereby requested to revert to MPNU, the assignor, to receive updates on your application,” the Commission stated in its rejection letter to Seplat in May.

However the presidency on Monday issued a release after dispatching a letter to Seplat Energy conveying ministerial consent to the deal.

Analysts say the handling of the matter does not bode well for future investments into Nigeria’s oil and gas sector already plagued with teething challenges including underinvestment, crude theft and general insecurity.

More from our Energy Column
Read Next
NUPRC to offer 50 oil, gas blocks in December licensing round

Nigeria’s revenue prospects brighten as NUPRC mulls new investment options

By Oladehinde Oladipo • August 11, 2022

Isaac Anyaogu is an Assistant editor and head of the energy and environment desk. He is an award-winning journalist who has written hundreds of reports on Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, energy and environmental policies, regulation and climate change impacts in Africa. He was part of a journalist team that investigated lead acid pollution by an Indian recycler in Nigeria and won the international prize - Fetisov Journalism award in 2020. Mr Anyaogu joined BusinessDay in January 2016 as a multimedia content producer on the energy desk and rose to head the desk in October 2020 after several ground breaking stories and multiple award wining stories. His reporting covers start-ups, companies and markets, financing and regulatory policies in the power sector, oil and gas, renewable energy and environmental sectors He has covered the Niger Delta crises, and corruption in NIgeria’s petroleum product imports. He left the Audit and Consulting firm, OR&C Consultants in 2015 after three years to write for BusinessDay and his background working with financial statements, audit reports and tax consulting assignments significantly benefited his reporting. Mr Anyaogu studied mass communications and Media Studies and has attended several training programmes in Ghana, South Africa and the United States

Join BusinessDay whatsapp Channel, to stay up to date

Open In Whatsapp