Royal Dutch Shell has
offered to sell five oil leases in Nigeria's Niger Delta to domestic energy
companies.
Shell is in talks with
several Nigerian oil companies, including Midwestern Oil & Gas, Niger Delta
Petroleum Resources, and Setplat Petroleum, for the sale of oil leases 26, 30,
34, 40 and 42 in the Niger Delta.
The leases, some of which
contain reserves of up to 2 billion barrels, are valued at between $150 million
and $2 billion, according to ThisDay. A deal could be completed within weeks,
the newspaper said.
A Shell spokesman in
Nigeria declined to comment, saying the company does not respond to speculative
reports.
Shell has said it is open
to selling more of its assets in Nigeria's Niger Delta, where its oil and gas
production has been hit by years of militant attacks.
Any sale would need to be
approved by state oil firm NNPC, which is the majority shareholder of the oil
blocks, however.
"It is premature for
Shell to talk about any asset sales without consulting and getting approval
from the Nigerian government and NNPC. Let the buyer beware," an NNPC
spokesman said.
Nigeria has yet to approve
a previous Shell sale of three Nigerian oil licenses to a consortium consisting
of two local firms and France's Maurel & Prom.
Shell in January agreed to
sell oil mining leases 4, 38 and 41 located in the northwestern part of the
Niger Delta. The leases include 30 wells with a production capacity of around
50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Jos, the Plateau state capital, boiled yet again recently leaving in the wake of it hundreds of lives lost and properties worth billions of Naira destroyed. A good number of those who survived crisis have been economically displaced and may have to start life all over again.
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