Divested Assets: NNPC Seeks Collaboration With Independent Producers

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) has called for deeper collaboration among upstream operators, especially independent producers, to find solutions to the challenges hindering the effective development of divested assets in the nation’s oil and gas industry.

The company’s Executive Vice-President, (Upstream) Mrs. Oritsemeyiwa Eyesan, made the call on Wednesday at a panel session in the on-going 2024 Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES 2024) holding in Abuja.

Speaking on the theme: “Innovation, Collaboration, and Resilience: Empowering Independent Producers in the Dynamic Energy Era”, Eyesan stated that past experiences with divestments and how the assets were operated had left much to be desired as most of them experienced a drop in production rather than growth.

“In the industry, if you want to measure success, there are some basic indicators that you utilise – production growth, reserves growth, and asset integrity. If I were to evaluate prior investment initiatives and scale the actors using these indices, I will be untrue to myself if I say everybody has done well. Yes, we acquired the assets; but today, we are worse off in terms of production than we were when we did the acquisition”, the EVP lamented.

She, however, acknowledged that there were some success stories in the operations of the independent producers.

She identified some of the challenges to include insecurity, lack of finance, and lack of technological capacity, stressing that with collaboration among industry players, the challenges could be surmounted.

“Collaboration cannot be over-emphasized. Somebody said we should be in a state of emergency, and I totally agree with that. It’s not by sitting here and talking about the challenges, I think we should have a war room where we raise the issues and set out concrete plans to resolve them, rather than wait for stakeholders individually to take them on. We need collaboration, collaboration, and collaboration”, she enthused.

The panel session had key players in the sector including the Chief Executive Officer of Aradel Holdings, Adegbite Falade; Managing Director of SNEPCo, Mrs Elohor Aiboni; Managing Director of First E & P Development Company, Demola Adeyemi-Bero; and Chief Executive Officer, TotalEnergies, Matthieu Bouyer.

Others on the panel were Chief Executive Officer, ExxonMobil Nigeria, Shane Harris; Chief Operating Officer, Oando Energy Resources, Dr Ainojie Alex Irune; and Director, Joint Venture, Chevron Nigeria, Cosmas Iwueze.