Conoil Producing, owned by billionaire Mike Adenuga, has emerged as winner of the bid for the 40% equity held by Chevron Corp. in Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 86 and 88. The Lagos oil junior is currently discussing with the American international oil major.
The report said it was still not clear the total worth of the assets, which lie in contiguity with some of its own producing properties. Chevron had been trying to dispose the shallow water acreages, located off the mouth of the current Niger Delta basin, for over five years. They are part of the five Nigerian tracts acquired in the course of the merger between Chevron and Texaco 21 years ago.
OML 86 contains the Apoi fields; the largest being North Apoi. It also holds Funiwa, Sengana and Okubie fields. One recent discovery: Buko, straddles Shell Nigeria operated Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 286 and is either on trend with, or on the same structure as the HB field in OPL 286.
OML 88 holds the Pennington and the Middleton fields, as well as the undeveloped condensate discovery, Chioma field.
Between 2013 and 2015, Chevron sold its stakes in OMLs 83 and 85, both of them former Texaco Nigeria assets. It’s instructive, then, that Chevron’s largest producing asset in Nigeria, the Agbami field, was “inherited” in that same turn- of –the- century merger with Texaco; this deepwater field alone produces 165,000BOPD, more than a third of Chevron’s total operated crude oil production in Nigeria.
But economic downturn occasioned mainly by the corona virus lockdown in the past seven months is believed to be taking undue toll on the fortunes of oil exploration companies, including Chevron prompting the divestment.
OER investigation revealed that three months ago, the bidders were expected to make full disclosure of their financial and operating capacities by the end of April 2020. The conclusion of this sale means that Chevron has disposed of all the legacy shallow water assets it acquired when it purchased Texaco in 1999.
By Chibisi Ohakah, Abuja
Be the first to know when we publish an update
