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EXPRESSION OF INTEREST

NOTICE OF EXPRESSION OF INTEREST FOR JOINT VENTURE PARTNERSHIP (JVP) WITH UGANDA NATIONAL OIL COMPANY LIMITED (UNOC) IN THE PRODUCTION SHARING AGREEMENT FOR THE KASURUBAN CONTRACT AREA

 The Uganda National Oil Company Limited (UNOC) was established under Section 42 of the Petroleum (Exploration, Development and Production) Act, 2013 and incorporated under the Companies Act 2012, in June 2015. It is a limited liability company wholly owned by the Government of Uganda. Its key mandate is to handle the state’s commercial interests in the oil and gas industry and ensure that the resource is exploited in a sustainable manner.

UNOC signed a Production Sharing Agreement (PSA) with the Government of Uganda in respect to the 2^nd Kasuruban Contract Area (KSCA) and was awarded a Petroleum Exploration License on 2 February 2023. UNOC holds 100% participating interest in the PSA for the KSCA.

The exploration license runs for an initial period of two (2) years subject to renewal for a maximum of two (2) successive renewals not exceeding two (2) years each in accordance with the Upstream Act of 2013. UNOC was granted a renewal of die petroleum exploration licence over the KSCA for two (2) years Second Exploration Period from 3^rd March 2025 to 2^nd March 2027.

UNOC successfully delivered an aggressive work program for die First Exploration Phase that included Geological. Geophysical and their technical studies including petrophysical analysis and reservoir characterisation, basin analysis and resources assessment to enhance the petroleum prospectivity of the Contract Area. The work program activities for the Second Exploration Phase include reprocessing of

existing 2D seismic data, acquisition and processing of additional 2D seismic data and drilling of at least one exploratory well.

UNOC now invites entities tiiat are interested in a joint venture partnership in the PSA for petroleum exploration, development and production for the Kasuruban Contract Area to submit a proposaL The entity must have a proven track record of operating petroleum exploration and production licenses.

To access die EOI Guidelines, interested entities should send their company profile and the Power of Attorney to jvexploration@unoc.com. The EOI should be sent to UNOC on the same email address above not later than 17:00 hours East African Time (EAT) (Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) +3) on 28^th July 2025.

CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER

Plot 15 Yusuf Lule Road | P.0 Box 36316 Kampala, Uganda | Tel: ♦ (256) 312 444 600 | www.unoc.co.ug

The top African producers of hydrocarbons in the membership of OPEC have struggled to keep production on a growth trajectory, despite the cartel’s optimistic tone, which calls for more output.

Nigeria and Libya have collectively output less than 3Million Barrels per day (3MMBOPD) in the last full year.

Algeria’s oil output has dropped from over 1MMBOPD in 2023, to less than 930,000BOPD for all of 2024 and 2025.

Congo Brazzaville and Gabon, the two second tier African OPEC producers, have been middling performers at best in the last 18 months. Crude oil output in the former has hovered between 250,000BOPD and 265,000BOPD. The latter can claim that its production has edged past the 220,000BOPD “cap”,  to average 233,000BOPD in May 2025.  But there are no projects in sight that could take output in either country to300,000BOPD in the next five years.

African oil producers outside OPEC are also wallowing in the lows.

Ghana’s crude oil production has declined for the fifth consecutive year.

Egypt’s crude oil production decreased by 10% while natural gas production, for which the country is better known, fell by 25% during the last two years.

Angola walked out of OPEC less than 20 years after it joined, blaming a restrictive quota system that supposedly disallows it from opening the tap. But its production since it quit in January 2024 has not improved; it had only once breached 1.2MMBOPD. For most of the last 18 months it has moved between 1.03MMBOPD and 1.15MMBOPD.

African leaders are united in calling out the western financing structure as hostile to investments in African hydrocarbon projects. But a large part of the reason why production has atrophied is …Read More

By Macson Obojemuinmoin

UK major Shell Plc says that, contrary to recent media speculation, it “has not been actively considering making an offer for BP”.

The company also “confirms it has not made an approach to, and no talks have taken place with, BP with regards to a possible offer”.

Shell says that its  press statement on the non-take over is one “ to which Rule 2.8 of the Code applies and accordingly Shell confirms it has no intention of making an offer for BP. As a result Shell will be bound by the restrictions set out in Rule 2.8 of the Code”.

The company says it  remains “focused on delivering more value with less emissions through performance, discipline and simplification.

“Under Note 2 on Rule 2.8 of the Code, Shell reserves the right to set the restrictions in Rule 2.8 aside in the following circumstances:

1. a) with the agreement of the board of BP;

1. b) if a third party announces a firm intention to make an offer for BP;

1. c) if BP announces a Rule 9 waiver (see Note 1 of the Notes on Dispensations from Rule 9) or a reverse takeover (as defined in the Code); and

1. d) if there has been a material change of circumstances (as determined by the Takeover Panel).

Brazil’s state-controlled Petrobras has advanced talks for its entry into nine oil blocks in Côte d’Ivoire. This latest development follows the recent signing of agreements with Angola, progress in talks with Nigeria and plans to drill offshore Sao Tome and Principe and offshore South Africa later this year.

Petrobras said that it received an official guarantee from the Ivorian government “for exclusivity in the negotiation of contracts” for nine offshore blocks, the first stage in the process of acquiring exploratory licences in the West African country. The Ivorian government provided a list of the nine oil blocks, saying that it expects Petrobras to “further enhance the value of the western margin of the national sedimentary basin, which is still underexploited”.

Côte d’Ivoire divides its oil leases into four zones: onshore, the eastern Abidjan margin that hosts Italian ENI’s Baleine and Calao operations, the western San Pedro margin and ultra-deep offshore. The country’s entire offshore basin is covered in two dimensional (2D) seismic data but 3D seismic coverage is yet to extend to much of the San Pedro and ultra-deepwater zones. The blocks Petrobras will negotiate for include four in shallow-water and deepwater San Pedro (CI-513, CI-700, CI-701 and CI-702) and five that nearly span Ivory Coast’s entire ultra-deepwater acreage (CI-600, CI-601, CI-602, CI-603 and CI-605).

Angolan president Joao Lourenco’s recent state visit to Brazil saw the signing of a “memorandum of understanding (MoU) on research, development and upstream projects of interest” between Angola’s national oil company Sonangol and Petrobras that was also witnessed by Brazil’s president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on May23, 2025. The May 2025 MoU was second after a similar March 2025 MoU between Angolan upstream regulator ANPG and Petrobras for “the joint study and possible direct negotiation of concession contracts for blocks in offshore Angola”.

Nigeria aims to follow Angola’s lead with a plan for national oil company NNPC to sign deals with Petrobras either at the BRICS summit in July or at the COP30 summit in November 2025, two events that will be hosted by Brazil. It is not unironic that two oil producing countries might do a fossil fuels deal on the sidelines of a COP summit, a sign of where things stand in the geopolitics of the global energy transition. The Nigerian government said on May 14, 2025 that it was preparing hard for an NNPC-Petrobras biofuels partnership and a return of Petrobras to Nigerian deepwater operations, under the Nigeria-Brazil strategic dialogue mechanism.

Petrobras exited Africa partly as a fall-out of the Brazilian Lava Jato corruption scandal, when it sold the rest of its interest in the Nigerian deepwater Agbami, Akpo and Egina assets in 2020. But the Brazilian company returned to the continent in early 2024, when it joined a Shell-led consortium in Sao Tome and Principe, taking 45% interests in Blocks 10 and 13 and a 25% interest in Block 11, offshore the island country. Exploration drilling in Block 10 is expected to start in the third quarter of 2025.

Petrobras had, in late 2024, agreed to take a 10% interest in the TOTALEnergies-operated Deep Western Orange Basin Block (DWOB), 200 kilometres offshore South Africa. Drilling that (planned for the second half of this year) will mark the start of exploration in the southern part of DWOB, covering about 15,000 square  kilometres.

By Austin Avuru

On May 1, 2010, the first board of directors of Seplat Energy was inaugurated.

The Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 4, 38 and 41, which were purchased from Shell, TOTAL &ENI, were handed over to the (then) new company on July 29, 2010, after the consent of the minister of Petroleum had been granted.

15 years later, SeplatEnergy holds stakes in operations across 12 blocks, of which it operates nine (9), with net hydrocarbon production of about 120,000Barrels of Oil Equivalent per day, roughly 8% of Nigeria’s total output. On a gross basis, SeplatEnergy operates over 240,000BOEPD, or 16% of the country’s entire production.

But there was a distinct possibility, 16 years ago, that the company itself would have died at infancy; that the deal that was going to lead to the emergence of SeplatEnergy was going to be scuttled.

In his gripping memoir, My Entrepreneurship Journey, Austin Avuru, the founding Chief Executive Officer of Seplat, details the plat to stop Seplat from happening.

Excerpts:

By the time we were closing with Shell at the end of 2009, they were actually experimenting on two possible options for what was to be a well-planned program of asset disposals in Nigeria. One option was outright sale of the asset, as is, where is. This was the option we were involved in. The second option was to farm out the asset to a chosen company who would fund and operate the asset under mutually negotiated commercial terms (where the farmee would either pay an overriding royalty or a profit share to Shell). This was the option they were close to concluding with Afren on Oil Mining Lease (OML) 26 at the time we were closing with them.

The Minister of Petroleum Resources at the time was the legendary Dr. Rilwanu Lukman. His deputy, the Minister of State for Petroleum was Mr. Odein Ajumogobia (SAN). Dr. Lukman, before his second return as Minister of Petroleum was the founding Chairman of Afren. The GMD of NNPC was Alhaji Mohammed Barkindo (currently the Secretary General of OPEC).

This was the setting when ABC and I started engaging to secure government approval for our transaction. The engagement was at three key levels:

• The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)
• The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
• The Minister of Petroleum Resources

The Director of Petroleum Resources at the time was very close to me (or, so I thought). We were like family and I frequently ran errands for him the way you would for your elder brother. He was well known to my siblings and my mum. On the basis of this relationship, I told ABC to leave the engagement with DPR to me.

“I Saw the Transaction Collapsing Before Our Very Eyes
When the Minister responded, I was stunned! He said Shell had nothing to sell and that Government would not allow any asset sale. He advised that we should go back and adopt “the Afren Model” (meaning, the farmout model that Shell was negotiating with Afren on OML 26). I thought the entire deal had collapsed right there!”

The first sign of trouble was when we engaged the Minister of State for Petroleum asking for a comfort letter (approval in principle) to reassure the Chairman of Maurel et Prom (M & P) that getting approval for the transaction was just a procedural and regulatory process and that we did not foresee any problem securing it. He did not see any problem with issuing us such a letter (which would of course state that it was subject to our submitting an application and going through the full regulatory process to obtain the final approval after we closed). But the Director of Petroleum Resources who had direct access to the then President Yar’Adua, rushed off to him (when the letter was actually ready) and warned him not to issue the letter. His point was that the President had approved a basket of fields as potential marginal fields for a Marginal Fields Licensing round that was being planned. He said five fields in the basket were from these three blocks and that to issue the letter was to violate the President’s approval. The Minister buckled and reversed himself. A mutual friend subsequently came to me to warn me that two powerful people known to me were complaining that I had gone behind, with a group of investors “to buy the blocks containing two marginal fields that they had been promised” I went the extra length of visiting one of them to reassure him that, when eventually they were awarded the fields, we would work with them as partners to put the fields on production. He asked me to put the proposal in writing and send to him “before they could intervene to resolve my issues with DPR”.

At this point I decided to confront him directly. I went to his house and, after pleasantries with him and his wife sat down with him alone and broached the subject. I told him we had no problems with any planned Marginal Fields bid round. After all, we would be the farmor for the fields within these blocks and will have commercial agreements with the awardee’s (Farmee’s). What I asked was for him not to truncate this transaction by writing (as he said he would) to Shell to exclude these five fields from whatever they had negotiated with us. These five fields constituted about 30% of the contingent resources in this asset. He told me point blank that our transaction was dead on arrival as he would make sure we could not secure government approval. After this failed personal attempt, I sent his former boss (ex DPR Director) and an ex-Senator whom I knew was very close to him, and who was a Platform Petroleum Shareholder, to intercede for me. Also, two CEO’s of indigenous producing companies went, on their own, to explain the import of our transaction on all indigenous players. They argued that, if we were successful, the door would be thrown open for similar opportunities to be availed to everyone, urging him to support our efforts with all his power. His response was consistent… “Don’t waste your time with that Austin’s transaction. It is dead on arrival”.

“The DPR Boss Declared: Your Transaction is Dead on Arrival–What I asked from the Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources was for him not to truncate this transaction by writing (as he said he would) to Shell to exclude these five fields from whatever they had negotiated with us. These five fields constituted about 30% of the contingent resources in this asset. He told me point blank that our transaction was dead on arrival as he would make sure we could not secure government approval.”

Our engagement with NNPC offered a little more hope than the death sentence that came from the DPR Director. When I met the GMD, Alhaji Barkindo, who knew me fairly well from my years in NNPC, he told me that the Group Executive Director (GED) Upstream would prepare a position paper and bring to the NNPC executive committee for consideration. He said until that position paper was presented, he could not make any promises. The Group Executive Director (GED) Upstream was Phil Chukwu, a good-hearted man known for his professionalism and candour. I had worked with him in NAPIMS (he was my senior) and we had developed mutual respect for each other, developing into friendship. When I went to him, he enthusiastically announced that these are the kinds of transactions that should be supported strongly so that serious minded Nigerians can be encouraged to grow local capacity. He told me not to even bother getting back to him, that he was going to write a strong, positive opinion and defend it all the way to the NNPC board.

Another friend inside NNPC had, however, advised me that Alhaji Barkindo would never approve anything that had not been endorsed by his GED, Strategy and Planning. Fortunately, (or again, so I thought) the GED Strategy and Planning was a brilliant geologist/economist that NNPC had hired from ExxonMobil, and whom I had known for a long time before he came to NNPC. I went to him to pitch our case and he said he had no problem with the transaction. He asked if I had an evaluation report on the asset and I told him I had a CPR prepared by Gaffney, Cline & Associates (GCA). He said I should send him a copy of the report so he could prepare a well-informed position paper on the transaction. I was very happy and sent him the CPR as soon as I returned to Lagos from Abuja. I thought he would be ready with his report in about a week.

My apprehension started growing when I would call him each week, over a one-month period and he kept telling me he was still working on his report. I was to learn much later that he had prepared a brilliant economic analysis of our transaction, using the CPR I supplied him (which we paid $250,000 for) and his recommendation was that the transaction was so robust and economically viable that NNPC should exercise their right of pre-emption and buy the 45% interest on the terms we had agreed with Shell!

The next port of call was NAPIMS, the business unit of NNPC that was the custodian of their 55% interest in the J.V. Their legal opinion on the transaction would be very weighty. Again, the Manager Legal at NAPIMS was very well known to me. He was a year or two my junior in NNPC. In his position as Manager Legal, he frequently sounded out my views on critical industry issues and we had a healthy relationship. He was one of those brilliant but sadistic minds who was only happy when he saw the anguish that his legal opinion brought on the other party. One of his deputies then is the wife of a friend and professional colleague. She had confided in me that our transaction was dead on arrival because the NAPIMS legal opinion was that Shell, TOTAL and ENI had nothing to sell. According to this ridiculously infantile view, the Petroleum Act (1969) vested all minerals and Petroleum below the ground in the Federal Government of Nigeria and therefore, concessionaries had nothing to sell. Of course, Shell was not selling “minerals and petroleum below the ground”. They were selling their valid economic interest in an asset concessioned to them, in which they had invested capital to create value that was realizable through production and sale of crude oil and natural gas. The concession agreements clearly stated that the concessionaire is “entitled to win and carry away crude oil produced from the concession”. Unknown to us, he had actually by passed his boss, the Group General Manager Legal at the Corporate level and passed this opinion on to the Hon. Minister, Dr. Lukman.

After reaching agreement with M & P, the Chairman, Monsieur Henin informed us he would like to embark on a field visit to see the asset first hand. We engaged Shell to arrange the visit. We also arranged (thanks to ABC) to visit and have audience with the Hon. Minister of Petroleum and introduce our valuable foreign investor and partner to him. Months earlier, we had met with Dr. Lukman and introduced the transaction to him. His response had been “just go and clear with NNPC and I will approve it standing”. So, on this planned visit, we expected even stronger re-assurance since we had come so far.

Arranging the field visit was a tricky venture for Shell. None of the staff in Nigeria was aware of this transaction (I believe the Country Chairman was only informed after we had reached financial close, and the information was kept extremely tight). The field staff that was to conduct us round the facilities were told that we were visiting from Platform Petroleum (which was operating a producing marginal field within OML 38) as we were exploring the possibility of some future collaboration with Shell. This was easy to believe because I was the Managing Director of Platform Petroleum, Monsieur Henin arrived with his Managing Director and Technical Director, and along with me and ABC, we drove on to the field locations in Amukpe, Sapele and Oben. Monsieur Henin was impressed, both with the state of the facilities and the quality of operations. From interviewing the operators of the Sapele Gas Plant, I learnt that about 3,000 barrels per day of condensate was produced from the 30Million standard cubic feet of gas per day (30MMscf/d) of gas processed. This was not included in the 14-18,000Barrels of Oil Per Day (BOPD) we had been carrying in our analyses as the daily oil production figure. I was excited that these blocks might hold a lot more promise than our buy-side evaluation might have indicated.

After the field tour, we returned to Lagos in the evening. The next day we flew to Abuja for our meeting with the Hon. Minister of Petroleum, who welcomed us warmly as we introduced our investing delegation, from Paris. It was an opportunity to demonstrate to the M & P delegation that we had enough reach within the corridors of power to ensure, as we had promised that we would secure the requisite approval for the transaction. We then presented the details of our transaction, the funding we had secured and the import of this transaction on local capacity development which the Minister himself had consistently championed.

When the Minister responded, I was stunned! He said Shell had nothing to sell and that Government would not allow any asset sale. He advised that we should go back and adopt “the Afren Model” (meaning, the farmout model that Shell was negotiating with Afren on OML 26). I thought the entire deal had collapsed right there! The combination of the Director of Petroleum Resources and the NAPIMS Legal Manager had inflicted maximum damage. Talk about logic! If Shell had nothing to sell, what did they have to farm out? But this was no time to prove their logic wrong. It was time for damage control. Damage had been inflicted by corrupt Government officials posing as brilliant and competent professionals. When we left the meeting, there was no sign of anxiety or disappointment on Monsieur Henin’s face. I assumed that a combination of Dr. Lukman’s accent and the French men’s struggle ordinarily to understand even perfectly spoken English may have saved the day for us. I do not think Dr. Lukman’s message was understood by our visitors.

On the national political front, things were moving at a dizzying pace. President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua had taken ill and had been in hospital since September of 2009. Dr. Lukman was one of the super powerful ministers of Northern extraction who paid no attention to Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as the man in charge, in the absence of the President. Then, on February 9^th 2010, acting on the “doctrine of necessity” the Senate passed a resolution confirming Goodluck Jonathan as acting President. On 16^th March 2010, in an assertion of his authority over a divided administration where some members questioned his authority, Jonathan dissolved the Yar’Adua cabinet. On 6^th April 2010, he swore in his new cabinet. Lukman was out and Diezani Alison-Madueke was in as Petroleum Minister.  On 5^th May, 2010 President Yar’Adua died and, the next day, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was sworn in as substantive President.