Conoil pays deposit for Chevron’s stake in OMLs 86 and 88

Conoil Producing, the Nigerian E&P independent owned by the billionaire Mike Adenuga, has paid a deposit for its purchase of the 40% equity held by Chevron Corp. in Oil Mining Leases (OMLs) 86 and 88.

Conoil won the drawn out bid for the two shallow water assets and had been in discussion with the California headquartered major, since the story broke  in August 2020.

Conoil bid over $250 million for the blocks, which lie in contiguity with some of its own producing properties.

Chevron had been trying to dispose the shallow water acreages, located off the mouth of the current Niger Delta basin, for over six years. They are part of the five Nigerian tracts acquired in the course of the merger between Chevron and Texaco 22 years ago.

But things only revved up in the last 12 months.  Bidders were expected to have made full disclosure of their financial and operating capacities by the end of April 2020.

OML 86 contains the Apoi fields; the largest being North Apoi.

It also holds Funiwa, Sengana and Okubie fields. One recent discovery: Buko, straddles Shell Nigeria operated Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 286 and is either on trend with, or on the same structure as the HB field in OPL 286. OML 88 holds the Pennington and the Middleton fields, as well as the undeveloped condensate discovery, Chioma field.

The conclusion of this sale means that Chevron has disposed of all the legacy shallow water assets it acquired when it purchased Texaco in 1999.