The spotlight has turned on five Nigerian oil and gas companies bidding for Royal Dutch Shell’s oil onshore and shallow water assets valued at over $3billion. These include Seplat Energy, Sahara Group, Famfa Oil, Troilus Investments Limited, and Niger Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP).
BusinessDay examines their operations, focusing on their capacity to scale up production and properly manage fields.
Seplat Energy (SEPLAT)
Seplat Energy is Nigeria’s largest listed Oil & Gas firm by market value and the only African exploration and Production Company to be listed on the main board of the London Stock Exchange.
The company is considering acquiring more oil and gas assets as it looks to expand its portfolio and position itself for existing opportunities in Nigeria’s oil industry.
A look into the company’s assets showed the company produced an average of 30,028 barrels of oil per day on a working-interest basis in H1 2021.
As at September 2021, Seplat recorded increased output at OMLs 4, 38, 41, OML 53, and OPL 283, while the delays in sitting a new storage vessel at OML 40 to replace the MT Harcourt, which was damaged in November 2020, resulted in significantly lower volumes in the first quarter of 2021.
Production at the Gbetiokun field on OML 40 resumed in March with volumes in the second quarter averaging 6,791 bopd. The Extended Well Test at Ubima has been completed and the production phase commenced in March with volumes averaging 1,189 bopd in the second quarter.
Sahara Group
Sahara’s Upstream division is one of Africa’s leading independent E & P players with a diverse portfolio of eight oil and gas assets in prolific basins across Africa with a five-year target of achieving 100,000 bpd.
Read also: Shell’s gas business booms, pledges $5.5bn in buybacks from Permian sale
Asharami Energy Limited and Sahara Energy Field Holdings UK Limited are the entities at the forefront of the companies’ upstream operations.
Sources in the oil and gas sector say the company’s assets are at various stages of development ranging from exploratory fields to mature producing fields with huge potential for positive returns.
Famfa Oil
Famfa Oil is a family business founded by Modupe and Folorunso Alakija.
The company currently operates on Agbami field, one of the largest deepwater discoveries to date in Nigeria, with estimated recoverable reserves of 900 million barrels. The crude oil found in the field is light and sweet, with a 45-degree API gravity and no contaminants.
Developed using Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO), the Agbami field began production on the 29th of July, 2008. The Agbami FPSO is designed to handle 250,000 bopd with an additional 450 MMcf/d and 450,000 barrels of injected water per day.
Nigeria Delta Exploration and Production (NDEP)
Niger Delta Exploration & Production Plc (NDEP) is one of Nigeria’s first integrated oil and gas investment companies. Under the leadership of founding Chairman, Late Godwin Aret Adams, a former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the company acquired the beneficial interests in the Ogbele marginal oil field lying within the old and now relinquished OML 54 on August 7 2000.
Four years later, NDPR also acquired a 100 percent stake and operatorship of the Omerelu Field from the NNPC/Chevron (JV). The Omerelu Field is located in OML 53 about 42 kilometers as the crow flies North West of Port Harcourt in Rivers State, Nigeria.
The field is estimated to hold a recoverable reserve of 13 million stock tank barrels of oil and 16 Billion of standard cubic feet of gas.
Troilus Investments Limited
There is no public information about Troilus antecedents, production capacity or corporate governance. Sources at Reuters claimed the company hired Nigeria-focused Africa Bridge Capital Management to raise up to $3 billion for the assets.
