05 November 2012, Sweetcrude, LAGOS – THE Royal Dutch Shell and two other multinational oil companies operating in Nigeria – Total and Eni (Agip) – have earned $2.569 billion (N411.04 billion) from the sale of a jointly held stake in seven oil blocks within the last two years.
They sold 45-per-cent stake in the seven oil concessions, namely Oil Mining Leases, OMLs, 3, 38, 41, 26, 42, 30 and 34 now operated by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC – arm of the state-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
NNPC was majority shareholder in the seven blocks with 55 per cent equity in the joint venture before the multinationals sold the 45 per cent stake.
Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, was the original operator of the joint venture with a 30-per-cent stake; Total Exploration & Production (Nigeria) Limited, 10 per cent; and Nigerian Agip Oil Company, 5 per cent.
But following growing attack on their facilities by militants in the Niger Delta between 2007 and 2009, the IOCs embarked on a divestment programme to sell some of their onshore assets in the region.
With the sale of the blocks by Shell and its partners, reserves of about one billion barrels of oil equivalent, bboe, had been transferred to local operators.
Seplat Petroleum Development Company, in partnership with French-based Maurel and Prom, paid $386 million to acquire OMLs 3, 38 and 41, while First Hydro Carbon Nigeria, alongside AFREN as foreign partners, bought OML 26 for $148 million.
Neconde Energy Limited and its foreign partners, Kulczyk Oil Ventures, paid $585 million for OML 42, while OMLs 30 and 34 were acquired by Shoreline and Niger Delta Exploration and Production Plc, NDEP, at $850 million and $600 million, respectively.
Shoreline was partnered by Heritage, while NDEP acquired its block with the Petrolin Group.
