U.S. oil company Chevron Corp said on Wednesday it was selling its 40 percent stakes in two more shallow water Nigeria offshore oil blocks, Oil Mining Leases (OML) 86 and 88 in the Niger Delta area.
Earlier, Chevron had divested its 40% stakes in the OMLs 83 and 85. The properties had been sold to First Exploration & Petroleum Development Company, a Nigerian exploration and production firm.
With the sale of OMLs 86 and 88, Chevron will have divested all the shallow water assets it had acquired with the Texaco buyout. Though no details have been available, the assets under sale are believed to hold substantial resource potential.
Other big names from the energy industry like Royal Dutch Shell plc
and ConocoPhillips have also sold their respective stakes in OMLs located in Nigeria.
Operating in the Niger Delta has been a challenging task for many of these energy majors. This is primarily owing to the oil thefts and pipeline destructions, which hamper production. Tax uncertainties further add to the woes.
San Ramon, CA-based Chevron is one of the largest publicly traded oil and gas companies in the world, in terms of proved reserves. It is engaged in oil and gas exploration and production, refining and marketing of petroleum products, manufacturing of chemicals, and other energy-related businesses.
Chevron in February completed the sale of its 40 percent stakes in two Nigerian shallow water offshore oil blocks, OML 83 and 85, to local firm First Exploration & Petroleum Development Company Limited (First E&P).
Oil theft, pipeline vandalism and uncertainty over taxes in Nigeria’s proposed oil bill, which is still in the making, has been holding back billions of dollars in investment, especially in capital-intensive deepwater offshore blocks, leading some multinational upstream firms to sell them.
Last year, Oando completed the acquisition of ConocoPhillips’s upstream oil and gas business in Nigeria.
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