Olu Verheijen, Special Adviser to Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu on Energy, says that the government is expecting a significant proportion of the crude oil and gas production from the 22 Oil Mining Leases whose operatorships have passed from Shell and ExxonMobil to Renaissance Africa and Seplat Energy in the last four months.
“People call these transactions divestment but I call them acquisition”, she told Africa Oil+Gas Report in her office in Abuja, the country’s capital.
“They are acquisitions by Nigerian entities; five of them completed in one year”. She said that “now we have these indigenous operators who have a native understanding of these environments and these communities. We expect them to really deliver”.
Nigeria averaged 1.672Million Barrels of Oil and Condensate per day in February 2025, a slight (4%) decrease from the January 2025 output, but the government has targeted 2.06MMBPD (oil and condensate) in the 2025 National Budget.
That means it expects at least 388,000Barrels Per Day increase. The government is apparently using the forecast production of 2,066, 938BPD by over 40 operating entities for the first six months of the year, calculated by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
In that forecast, NUPRC expects Renaissance to produce an average of 226, 421BPD (gross) and Seplat (both onshore and shallow water) to produce 271,462BPD (gross). Combined, the two companies are forecast by the regulator to deliver 497, 883BPD, about 24% of the country’s anticipated total.
In a wide ranging interview published in the February 2025 issue of Africa Oil+Gas Report monthly, Mrs. Verheijen said that “between the Renaissance deal and the Seplat deal, we expect a lot of our incremental production to come from those assets so we’re going to be working very closely with the new owners”.
She declared that the government has “now ended that stalemate of someone’s looking to leave, so they’re not really investing but the other person is eager to invest but doesn’t have ownership yet. Now there’s clarity, you have ownership, you are accountable and you’re going to deliver. And the one who wanted to leave has now been enabled to focus on what they want to do which is deep water and integrated gas. We’re going to spend a lot of time with them also in making sure that they deliver those as well”.
