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The 2014 crude oil price crash harvested a lot of victims.

Afren went under, BG was swallowed by Shell, Anadarko disappeared, Tullow Oil, which shared the position, with Anadarko, of the arrowhead of African wildcat exploration, has not recovered since; it sold its prime properties in East Africa to TOTAL, recalibrated its Pan African exploration forays and retreated to one heartland: Ghana.

All of which is why it is consequential to witness a company like Savannah, which didn’t exist in 2014, grab portfolios in Chad, Cameroon and South Sudan and announce increased share of the Nigerian market. And of course, take notice that M&P, which still holds over 20% of Seplat Energy in West Africa, is looking to triple its output in Gabon (Central Africa) and double its production inTanzania (East Africa).

Seplat itself may become, in a matter of months, a bigger onshore/shallow water Nigerian operator than Chevron or TOTAL.

Yes, the London, New York, Australia, and Calgary listed Independent E&P player is back in full reckoning on the African Oil Patch.

Majors like TOTAL, Shell and ENI are making the headlines on hub sized discoveries in the continent’s frontier basins, but the minnows are back from a nine-year retreat into the shadows.

Welcome to the INDEPENDENTS’ DAY ANNUAL 2023.

Read your copy here.

In this edition, we also deliver market intelligence material in the consequential countries from Algeria, Angola, Egypt and Gabon to Mozambique, South Africa and Tanzania.

The Africa Oil+Gas Report is the primer of the hydrocarbon industry on the continent. It is the market leader in local contextualizing of global developments and policy issues and is the go-to medium for international corporations, local entrepreneurs, technical enterprises or financing institutions, for useful analyses of Africa’s oil and gas industry. It has been published by the Festac News Press Limited since November 2001, and since the COVID 19 season, as a monthly digital (pdf) publication, delivered to subscribers around the world. Its website remains www.africaoilgasreport.com and the contact email address is info@africaoilgasreport.com. Contact telephone numbers in our West African regional headquarters in Lagos are  +2347062420127, +234803652979, +2348023902519

BW Offshore, the Norwegian service provider, reports that it has closed the transaction for the sale of the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel Sendje Berge to a local FPSO owner and operator for a total consideration of $15Million.

That local FPSO owner is Century Energy Group, an active, Nigerian owned, oil and gas infrastructure manager.

Century Group has now assumed responsibility for operations of the Sendje Berge, which has completed more than 18 years on the Okwori field since it commenced operations in April 2005.

The Okwori field is located in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 126 in shallow water eastern Niger Delta. It is operated by Antan Producing Limited, a fully owned subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited. OML 126 is one of the assets taken over from Sinopec owned Addax Petroleum by NNPC Ltd.

The Okwori field has been a subpar performer in the last three months. Its production dropped from 3,184Barrels of Oil Per Day (BOPD) in April 2023, to 840BOPD in May 2023. It did not produce a drop of crude in June 2023 according to data by the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).

Century Group is a very busy service provider. It is currently overhauling the Front Puffin (previously the producing unit on the Aje field offshore Lagos), to take on production on the WAEP operated Kaelekule development in OMLs 71 & 72; it is rekitting the Armada Perdana FPSO for deepwater Oyo field and other opportunities in OMLs 120 & 121 and it is involved in the Eli Akaso evacuation infrastructure project, which was planned to take crude from fields in OML 18 and adjoining assets and deliver from shuttle tankers to an FPSO.

BW Offshore Limited is a global owner and operator of floating production storage and offloading vessels. The company is listed on Oslo Stock Exchange. The company has its headquarters in Singapore and Oslo, Norway but operates internationally.

By Abdulwaheed Sofiullahi, AOGR reporter, Petroleum Parastatals

In what it describes as a significant victory against illicit activities plaguing Nigeria’s oil industry, the NNPC Ltd says that private security contractors it employed have successfully intercepted a vessel carrying stolen crude oil. The operation took place on July 7, 2023, at an offshore location.

Garba Deen Muhammad, the Chief Corporate Communications Officer of the state hydrocarbon company, announced the successful interception in a press release issued from the organization’s headquarters in Abuja.

According to the statement, the vessel in question, MT TURA II (IMO number: 6620462), owned by HOLAB MARITIME SERVICES LIMITED—a Nigerian registered company with Registration Number RC813311—was en route to Cameroon when it was apprehended. The vessel, captained by its crew, had a suspicious cargo of crude oil on board.

Preliminary investigations conducted by NNPC revealed that the crude oil cargo had been illegally sourced from an offshore well jacket in Ondo State, Nigeria. The vessel lacked valid documentation for both its operations and the oil cargo it carried.

Further scrutiny of the vessel’s activities at the NNPC Ltd. Command and Control Centre uncovered that the vessel had been operating clandestinely for the past twelve years. Its last reported location was the Tin Can Port in July 2011.

The press release emphasized that the apprehension of vessels involved in the transportation of stolen crude oil is essential to serve as a strong deterrent against such illegal activities. The illicit trade of stolen crude oil not only causes significant economic losses for Nigeria and legitimate stakeholders in the oil industry but also perpetuates corruption, environmental devastation, and social instability.

NNPC Ltd. has escalated details of the arrest and investigation outcomes to the appropriate government authorities. As a result, it has been decided that the vessel will be destroyed, sending a resounding message to all those involved in similar unlawful ventures to cease and desist.

Highlighting their commitment to combating crude oil theft, NNPC Ltd. assures the Nigerian people that they will sustain the momentum in their ongoing efforts until such criminal activities are brought to a complete halt.

The Government of Uganda has admitted insufficient progress, in the compensation process for the people affected by the siting of the East African Crude Oil Pipeline.

The 1,443 kilometre crude evacuation facility is expected to run from Kabaale, Hoima district in Uganda to the Chongoleani Peninsula near Tanga Port in Tanzania.  When constructed it will be a buried, thermally insulated 24″ pipeline along with six pumping stations (two in Uganda and four in Tanzania) ending at Tanga with a Terminal and Jetty, where crude oil will be loaded onto tankers.

“Delayed compensation process”, according to the Ugandan Ministry of Finance’s Semi-Annual Budget Monitoring Report Financial Year 2022/23, “coupled with inadequate funds and rampant complaints from the EACOP project affected persons (PAPs) in the pipeline corridor and feed pipelines”, are a rampant feature of the project. “Insufficient funding is hindering the progress of some of the planned activities needed to be undertaken as preparations for the production of the oil”, it declared.

The report, released in the second quarter of 2023, also notes that the EACOP’s Resettlement Action Plan (RAP), implemented by TOTALEnergies was at 78% with land titling at 30%, as of the end of December 2022.

It explains, however that a similar plan being implemented for product pipelines, by the Ministry of Energy and Minerals Development (MEMD) “was at 45% being affected by low release for the activity”.

Corridor harmonization for activities for the EACOP and products pipeline were undertaken to establish any existing overlaps and avoid double payments and a total of 85 PAPs were found to be affected by both pipelines.

The report recommends, with regards to EACOP, the strengthening of the monitoring and supervision of the ongoing compensation process for EACOP project affected persons (PAPs)  “to ensure the process is undertaken fairly”

By Uzor Maxim Uzoatu

Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry (3^rd Edition) Essays by Austin Avuru; RADI8 Ltd, Lagos; 2022; 474pp

Let’s start with a confession. This book, Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry (3^rd Edition), Essays by Austin Avuru, has been so engrossing that, after some readings and rereading, I almost found it too heavy to compress into a review.

The situation reminds me of the words of the great American essayist and novelist, James Baldwin, who wrote in his essay “A letter to my Nephew”  published as a prelude to the classic The Fire Next Time: “I have begun this letter five times and torn it up five times.”

After discarding some earlier versions of this review, I can now vow like the late Nigerian poet Christopher Okigbo that the version here is final.

Austin Avuru’s Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry is divided into three broad sections, namely, “Politics & Governance”, “Political Economics”, and “The Nigerian Petroleum Industry”, but the offering is best appreciated as a seamless whole. There is no escaping the hard fact that the petroleum industry is at the very heart of Nigeria’s politics and economics.

“A country whose annual budget is only $10Billion can play host to a $4Billion project like the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in Bonny and yet not feel its impact directly on the economy. At least three major developments worth over $3Billion are ongoing without the economy sneezing… Whereas these projects are being executed here with income also earned here, the multiplier benefits are felt in far flung places like Houston, Aberdeen, Tokyo etc.”

A methodical and consistent oil man, Avuru is that corporate mandarin and public intellectual who got engaged in stout opposition to military rule and arbitrariness while persistently clamouring for good governance and the ennobling tenets of democracy. His courageous consistency in the agitation for a private sector-led petroleum industry with increased local participation marks him out as a consummate Nigerian skipper who walks his talk.

The 74 essays that make up Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry are daring renditions and exposes, taking no prisoners. With Austin Avuru, as espoused in the collected essays, there is no beating about the bush, as the old cliché says.

Born on August 17, 1958, Avuru graduated at the top of his Geology class at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) in 1980, and it is indeed remarkable that his recommendation on Students’ Accommodation in his Address as the President of the Graduating Class, delivered at age 22 on December 12, 1980, became in 2002 the chosen path at an interactive session between President Obasanjo, the Education Minister and Private Sector Financiers.

Avuru has all over the eventful years of Nigeria put out his views in the public domain through the media such as The Guardian, ThisDay, Businessday, Financial Standard, PM News, Africa Oil + Gas Report etc. These original ideas make up the essays collected in this book alongside unpublished memos, public addresses, workshop paper presentations etc. The first of the essays dates back to 1980 while the latest ones were published in 2022.

The author’s range in Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry is quite vast, intervolving what he terms the theory of potholes, the press as its own worst enemy, retired army generals as born-again democrats, the cleavages in his native Delta State, the activism of Concerned Professionals as the opposition party, the need for building a new police force, the tragedy of probes in Nigeria, the country’s peculiar brand of democracy, resource control as a political slogan, the trouble with onshore/offshore dichotomy, the revenue formula, the Electoral Act, constitutional amendment, the ambiguous status of local government councils, parasitism in the polity, spread of poverty, disturbing signals on privatisation, the trouble with foreign investments, deregulation, exchange rate blues, the subsidy trap, budgetary indiscipline, playing politics with power supply, the labour unions in a failed economy, indigenous participation in the Upstream Sector of the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, privatising NNPC’s Downstream operations, the flooding menace etc.

Amid the intimidating vastness of Avuru’s enterprise, there are some pivotal gems to highlight. The primacy of education is crucial to the Avuru agenda as he sets up the foundational role with his alma mater thus: “When in 1954 the legendary Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and his close friend, Dr. Okechukwu Ikejiani, started dreaming of a University of Nigeria, the intent was to lay the foundation for future leadership of the country rooted in culturally sound, classical as well as vocational tertiary education.” Avuru posits education and development in Nigeria as a dream betrayed unlike, for instance, “Singapore’s transformation from Third World to First World in thirty years and subsequent establishment as one of the world’s most attractive investment and tourist destinations was hinged on a solid foundation of carefully crafted educational development programs.”

The betrayal is also evident on the political front especially with Avuru hopefully seeing the 2007 election of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and Vice-President Goodluck Jonathan as the “final exit of the Class of 1932-1942” coup-plotting military men and retired generals taking hold of Nigerian power only for General Muhammadu Buhari to make a return as military president in 2015!

As Avuru avers, “Oil and gas have always been as much the fuel of the economy as it is the fuel of politics all over the world, and Nigeria has been no exception.” The squandering of oil and gas riches over the years in Nigeria is at the very heart of the country’s downfall. Lamentation is the forte of Nigeria: “A country whose annual budget is only $10Billion can play host to a $4Billion project like the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project in Bonny and yet not feel its impact directly on the economy. At least three major developments worth over $3Billion are ongoing without the economy sneezing… Whereas these projects are being executed here with income also earned here, the multiplier benefits are felt in far flung places like Houston, Aberdeen, Tokyo etc.”

The reason not to despair is that there is an individual like Austin Avuru in the Nigerian sphere who is as ever ready to lead the charge by daring all elements against all odds. The pioneer CEO of Seplat Energy which he co-founded in 2010, Avuru is the chairman of AA Holdings who in the spirit of his book, Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry, believes fervently that “it is the aggregate activity of the human capital in harnessing resources that creates wealth.”

Avuru proves that a well-informed individual can make the change through personal example. It is noteworthy that after the Supreme Court ruling on the illegality of first line charges on the Federation Account, NNPC in May 2002 opened a ‘Cash Call Account’ into which their cash recovery is paid, as suggested in Avuru’s article “Mortgaging the Nigerian Oil Industry” published in ThisDay of March 19, 1997.

An earlier piece entitled “Upstream Divestment: The Real Issues” published in The Guardian of October 15, 1996 radically swayed Government’s plan to convert Joint Ventures (JVs) to Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) as announced by the then Finance Minister Anthony Ani.

Politics, Economics & the Nigerian Petroleum Industry (3^rd Edition), Essays by Austin Avuru, is worthy of celebration. Anybody who aspires to leadership in Nigeria needs to read this book. I enthusiastically recommend it to all persons and libraries in Nigeria and beyond. It is indeed a treasure trove of inspirational knowledge.

Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Director, Borodoro Publishing, in Awka, Anambra State, is a Nigerian poet, journalist, and author.