Seplat projects double production in six months

Oil and gas giant, Seplat, has proposed double production within six months, after moving in to fill the gap following ExxonMobil’s retreat from Nigeria’s onshore oil sector.

Seplat’s chief financial officer, Eleanor Adaralegbe revealed that the London-listed company plans to double output from about 50,000 barrels a day to roughly 120,000 bpd over six months.

He hinted that the assets have had very minimal investments until now, but assured that there will be an opportunity to grow that much further once Seplat comes in fully.

Chief Executive, Roger Brown, said his company was confident that it could collaborate with NNPC to raise overall production, a stated goal of Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu. NNPC has been criticised for decades of alleged corruption and mismanagement after the company admitted it owed its suppliers money, estimated to be more than $6bn.

According to Brown, the combined assets mean that Seplat now controls 16 per cent of Nigeria’s present production capacity, and runs the assets in conjunction with state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Company as legally mandated in the country’s oil and gas industry.

READ MORE: Seplat finalises $800m acquisition of Mobil Unlimited from ExxonMobil

“We have no concerns working with NNPC . . . There’s been a massive change with President Tinubu, realising that production is a great way of getting dollars into the country and supporting the currency,” Brown said.

Seplat completed its purchase of a range of oil and gas assets owned by ExxonMobil in December after Nigerian regulators delayed sign-off on the deal for more than two years.

The $1.28bn acquisition of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited makes Seplat one of the biggest domestic producers with an asset base of 11 onshore oil blocks, 48 oil and gas fields, three export terminals, and five gas processing facilities.

Exxon’s sale comes as international oil groups exit Nigeria’s troubled onshore and shallow water sector, which has been beset by decades of environmental damages, and more recently by declining production. International groups such as Italy’s Eni, Norway’s Equinor and Adda Petroleum have all departed.