Norway’s Equinor is planning to divest its stake in the Agbami oil field, offshore Nigeria, for up to $1billion. Reports say the firm intends to sell its entire 20% stake in the Agbami deepwater field to focus on more profitable assets.
Citing three unnamed industry sources, the Reuters’ report said the move puts the Norwegian company on the list of Western energy firms looking to retreat from the West African country to shift their focus to newer and more profitable assets.
According to the sources, investment bank, Standard Chartered has been appointed by the Norwegian firm to run the sale process.
Equinor currently owns a 20% stake in the Agbami deepwater field, which spans across oil mining lease (OML) 127 and OML 128 in the central Niger Delta.
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Chevron operates the field with a 67.30% interest while Prime 127 holds the remaining 12.49% stake.
The move by Equinor is not really surprising current developments on the investment. Reports say recently, production from the oilfield has been declining rapidly to 29,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2020, from 36,000boepd in 2019.
In 2022, Equinor signed a deal with Nigeria’s state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company [NNPC] to extend the licence for offshore block OML 128 by 20 years.
Before he current crack down on oil thieves and celebrated unscrupulous elements in the crude oil value chain, several Western oil giants including Shell, Exxon Mobil, and TotalEnergies, were at one time or the other engaged in talks about quitting the Nigerian oil space primarily in onshore operations.
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But since October 2022, the Nigerian government seem to be upping its game in taking back the oil sector from thieves and unpatriotic, corrupt elements in the system.
NNPC’s proposed $25billion gas pipeline from Nigeria to Morocco by 2023, seem to have brought a lot of confidence to the system. NNPC is promoting the gas pipeline project to meet the surging demand for new gas sources in Europe, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
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