NNPCL clears $3.8bn JV cash-call arrears owed IOCS

…flags off Wadi-B drilling campaign in Borno state

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, says it has cleared the outstanding $3.8 billion joint venture cash-call debts owed to international oil companies, IOCs, operating in the country.

NNPCL’s Executive Vice President, Upstream, Adokiye Tombomieye, disclosed this as he lamented that inadequate JV cash call funds was stunting the growth of the oil and gas industry.

Tombomieye made the disclosure while speaking during a panel session on upstream opportunities at the fourth edition of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair, NOGOF, 2023, organised by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

Represented by the Chief Upstream Investment Officer, NNPCL, Mr Bala Wunti, he disclosed that the country’s oil production has maintained significantly increase following measures to tackle crude oil theft.

Tombomieye warned that the NNPCL would no longer deal with portfolio companies, and urged investors to avoid acting as middlemen.

He disclosed that the company had leveraged its financial autonomy derived from the Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, to work out and execute a payment plan for the cash call debt while balancing its energy security obligations to the nation.

“This, by no small means, re-energised the JVs to recalibrate their focus towards sustaining production and increasing their spending to procure the necessary services required to do so,” the NNPCL chief said.

Also speaking on the panel, the Managing Director of TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Limited, Mr Mike Sangster, announced that the final investment decision on the company’s upcoming Ubeta gas project would be taken in the first quarter of 2024.

Sangster, represented by the Executive Director, JV Assets, TotalEnergies, Mr. Obi Imemba, said Ubeta was its last discovered but undeveloped well in the Oil Mining Lease, OML, 58.

…flags off Wadi-B drilling campaign in Borno state

Meanwhile, the spud-in and ribbon-cutting ceremony of the Wadi-B drilling campaign was performed by the Borno State Governor, Babagana Zulum on behalf of President Buhari. During the May 23 Presidential Flag-off of the Wadi-B Drilling Campaign, in the Chad Basin, at Tuba Community, Jere Local Government Area of Borno State, the NNPCL said it is committed to more oil and gas discoveries in Nigeria’s frontier basins.

This was made known by Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the NNPCL. During his opening statement, Kyari said that President Buhari’s visionary leadership has enabled the return of hydrocarbon exploration in the Chad Basin.

Chad Basin is one of Nigeria’s frontier basins which the NNPCL seeks to fully explore to increase the country’s oil and gas reserves. He said:

“The re-mobilisation of a drilling rig to the Chad Basin for the first time since the 1980s efforts indeed underscores the visionary leadership of Your Excellency, Mr. President, and today, we are honoured to have him bring back hydrocarbon exploration activities to the Chad Basin.

“As a commercial enterprise, NNPC Limited sees this project as an opportunity to monetise our abundant hydrocarbon resources, by expanding access to energy to support economic growth, industrialization, and job creation across the country.

“Our renewed drilling campaign has a higher geological chance of making commercial discoveries of hydrocarbons as we are equipped with state-of-the-art integrated geophysical datasets.

“Therefore, this is an event that will reinforce the Government’s commitment to exploration in the Nation’s Frontier Basins, primarily aimed at increasing the Nation’s hydrocarbon reserves.”

Nigeria’s frontier basins include Lake Chad, Gongola, Anambra, Sokoto, Dahomey, and Bida basins as well as the Benue trough. Oil and gas expert, Dan Kunle said that these basins are long overdue for exploration.

It is important to note also that the recent oil and gas discovery made by the NNPCL in Kolmani between Bauchi and Gombe states, is situated in the Gongola basin.

In November 2022, Timipre Sylva, the former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources said that drilling for hydrocarbons in the frontier basins is crucial to Nigeria’s survival as a nation.