Nigeria’s state hydrocarbon company NNPC has been seriously considering calls for divestment of its equity in the joint venture with both major European and American oil companies as well as Nigerian independents. If it would have to divest, according to Victor Adeniran, the company’s Group Executive Director for Commercial and Investment, “a holistic portfolio review of the asset landscape is required”.
In one of the scenarios considered, in house, for reform of the upstream sector of the industry, the NNPC discovered that 80% of NNPC production comes from 25% of the fields. “Why don’t you focus on the 25% and let the 75% relatively unproductive fields go”, Adeniran said at a Business meeting at the annual conference of the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE) last week.
“Statoil (formerly a Norweigian state hydrocarbon company) did this sort of thing recently, with fields like the Ekofisk ”. Mr. Adeniran did not say categorically that government had taken a decision about the calls for it to divest; he was only throwing around options that are available for reform of the industry.
