We are confident NUPRC will resolve outstanding issues in Shells divestment—Special Adviser

The Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Verheijen, has expressed confidence in the ability and commitment of the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) to resolve outstanding issues around Shell’s proposed sale of its onshore assets to the Renaissance consortium. She said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration remains committed to accelerating the strategic shift of international oil companies from onshore operations to focus on deep offshore and gas businesses. Speaking at the recent launch of project ‘1mmbopd to mark NUPRC three years anniversary’, the Commission Chief Executive, Engr Gbenga Komolafe, had disclosed the government’s approval for four divestment deals, including the ExxonMobil sale of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited to Seplat Energy.
Speaking at a virtual interview with journalists and analysts from 54 African nations, under the auspices of the African Association of Energy Journalists and Publishers (AJERAP), Wednesday, Verheijen, said: “Many divestment deals have been closed. There has been an accelerated rate of approvals for some of these deals. There is an improvement from what it used to be in the past. If you look at the level of approvals that have happened and the speed at which they occurred, you will see that there is an improvement. But there is one outstanding, and we remain confident in NUPRC’s regulatory process.
We have an objective to accelerate exits for international oil companies, IOCs, who do not want to leave Nigeria but instead focus on other areas, especially the deep offshore and the gas businesses. The IOCs have high-powered, resilient capital, and technical expertise to help us unlock value in that very complex, deep offshore and gas. For the onshore players, we want to make sure that the independents align with our objective of rapidly growing production. They need to have the technical and financial capacity.” 
She said President Tinubu has done a lot to attract and retain investors in the energy sector through the making of good policies and attractive incentives. The Special Adviser said: “When we came into office, we noted a decline in investment, partly due to insecurity challenges. The low investment was also based on fiscal incentives. We needed to review all these, including the revenue or the profit share between the government and investors. “We needed to rebalance and become more competitive compared to other investment destinations. We looked at all the operators, including international businesses still very interested in investing in Nigeria and have been advocating for ways to make us more competitive. We recognized that once we have a unified exchange rate and remove the downstream subsidies, on Premium Motor Spirit, PMS, which is also known as petrol we would need to accelerate investment into this sector and attract more capital and stabilise, the economy. The five presidential directives that we have talked about were originated and we have continued to drive and coordinate implementation. On the oil and gas side, we have been rolling out incentives to attract and retain our investors. We are also focusing on the midstream and downstream sectors to make them more attractive to investors.”