The main players in Nigeria’s oil industry have spent at least the past 18 months vying to influence a proposed shake-up of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest energy sector.
The draft Petroleum Industry Bill is evolving into the most comprehensive overhaul of the country’s oil sector since the first crude departed Nigeria half a century ago.
But behind the tussle over taxes and regulation is a battle that could lead to big changes in who controls the world’s 10th largest reserves. From local towns to Chinese oil groups, there are a growing number of claims to a limited resource. Three western oil companies – ExxonMobil and Chevron of the US and Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell – appear ready to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that expiring leases to some of their Nigerian blocks are renewed, though such payments are not required by law. Read the rest of this entry »
ExxonMobil has agreed to acquire a large stake in Ghana’s Jubilee oil field from its private equity owners, paying about $4 billion for one of Africa’s most potentially lucrative oil discoveries in recent years.
China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec), China’s largest refiner, and CNOOC Ltd. agreed to buy a 20% stake in Angola’s offshore deepwater Block 32 for $1.3 billion from Marathon Oil Corp. Marathon Oil, the fourth-largest U.S. oil company, will keep a 10% interest in the block, site of 12 announced petroleum discoveries, after the sale, which is expected to close by year- end, the companies said today in separate statements.
