Nigeria may add 480,000 barrels to its daily crude oil output as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and ExxonMobil took a step towards resolving the disagreement surrounding the sale of the latter’s asset to Seplat Energy.
On Thursday, the NNPCL confirmed it had signed a settlement agreement with ExxonMobil companies in Nigeria over the proposed divestment of a 100 per cent interest in Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited to Seplat Energy Offshore Limited.
This is coming barely 24 two days after President Bola Tinubu announced his intervention in the debacle between NNPCL and ExxonMobil hindering the sale of the assets to Seplat.
The Minister of States for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri, said recently that Nigeria had lost about $30bn in the past two and a half years as a result of the unsuccessful divestment.
The minister expressed concerns that Nigeria was losing about 480,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to the Seplat/ExxonMobil crisis.
He said the asset was producing about 600,000bpd until the crisis began in 2022, saying the nation was losing millions of dollars daily.
The PUNCH reported earlier that ExxonMobil and Seplat Energy had in 2022 announced a $1.6bn sales agreement deal that would see Seplat purchase ExxonMobil’s complete shares in the NNPCL.