French oil giants, Total has put up for sale its 12.5% stake in a major deepwater oilfield off the coast of Nigeria. The move is believed to be in the effort to adjust the energy company’s Africa portfolio amid a broad expansion, Reuters reported yesterday.
The 12.5% stake is in the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 118, which is located some 120 kilometres off the Niger Delta, is valued at up to $750 million, according to industry sources. Investment Bank Rothschild is quoted as running the sale process for the international oil company
A spokeswoman for Total declined to comment. Rothschild equally declined to comment. The sale process is part of Total’s plan to sell $5 billion of assets around the world by 2020, the sources said.
Formerly Bonga field (Nigeria’s first deepwater project) before being renamed as OML 118, it is said to contain approximately 6,000 million barrels of oil. It was discovered in 1996, and the federal government gave approval for its development in 2002 and began production in 2005.
OML 118 produced around 225,000 barrels of oil and 150 million standard cubic feet of gas per day at its peak. The field produces both petroleum which are offloaded to tankers and natural gas which are piped back to Nigeria where it is exported via an LNG plant.
The oil well is jointly operated by Royal Dutch Shell, who owns 55% of the licence, Exxon Mobil holds 20%, while Italy’s Eni and Total each hold 12.5%. the new agency said the output from the block is planned to grow sharply with the $10 billion development of the Bonga South-west field which is expected to produce up to 200,000 bpd, roughly 10% of Nigeria’s current oil production.
Recently, Total Nigeria partnered with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to grow daily crude oil and gas production and reserves to meet the national target of 40 billion barrels.
By Chibisi Ohakah
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