Nigerian businessman Tony Elumelu’s oil firm submits offer to acquire Shell’s JV assets in Nigeria

HeirsHoldings Oil & Gas Limited, an upstream oil and gas company owned by Tony Elumelu, a Nigerian multimillionaire businessman, has made a nonbinding offer to acquire a multibillion-dollar joint venture that operates oil fields owned by Shell Petroleum Development Company.

With the recent bid, the Elumelu-backed oil firm is set to compete with key players in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, including Sahara Group, ND Western Limited, and Seplat Energy, Nigeria’s most capitalized listed energy company, all of which are looking to acquire an equity stake in the joint venture, which operates oil fields valued at $4 billion.

The oil companies, including HeirsHoldings Oil & Gas, made the non-binding offers in January 2022 in an attempt to acquire a significant stake in the joint venture assets, which Wood Mackenzie estimated in August to be worth $2.3 billion based on a long-term oil benchmark of $50 per barrel.

With crude oil trading between $85 and $90 per barrel, experts anticipate that the oil assets controlled by the Nigerian subsidiary of Shell will be worth more than the $2.3 billion previously estimated by Wood Mackenzie.

Shell’s recent move represents a strategic attempt by the company to unlock value from its existing portfolio of assets in Nigeria, and it comes nearly a year after the company launched a major divestment of its Nigerian assets following the issuance of sale documents, with expressions of interest expected.

HeirsHoldings oil & Gas, an operating unit of Elumelu’s privately held investment conglomerate Heirs Holdings, has been active recently as it seeks to assume leadership of the Nigerian oil and gas industry.

The unit currently has a $1-billion operating stake in a permit known as Oil Mining Lease 17 (OML-17) located in southern Nigeria.

The oil company issued a tender for work on its OML-17 Multiphase Pump Gathering Station Project nearly four weeks ago.

Starting a multiphase pump gathering station to collect well fluids from the Elelenwo West manifold and transport them to the Agbada-1 station for processing is part of the overall scope of work.

Following completion of the work, the contractor will provide two years of operational spares, deliver the pump and other facilities to site, perform performance testing, and finally hand over the oil field to the HeirsHoldings Oil & Gas Limited operations team.