Seplat Petroleum and Development Company Plc is considering acquiring more oil and gas assets as it looks to expand its portfolio in the oil industry. This was disclosed by the Chief Executive Officer of the company, Austin Avuru.
Seplat Petroleum is targeting oil and gas assets in the exploration and production space. It is believed that acquisitions improve efficiency and drive growth. So, the company expects that the acquisition of more oil and gas assets will position it for existing opportunities in the oil market.
Seplat’s love for inorganic growth: Inorganic growth is the use of acquisition or merger to grow a company’s market size and revenue. Nairametrics learnt Seplat Petroleum had been embracing acquisitions to leverage its presence in the oil and gas industry for years. The company had acquired a 45% operated interest in Oil Mining Lease 4, 38 and 41 from Shell, Total and Agip in 2010.
It also acquired a 40% interest in the Oil Prospecting Licence 283 marginal field area from Pillar Oil and acquired more interests in OML 53 and OML 55 from Chevron Nigeria Limited in 2015. This acquisition gave Seplat Petroleum early-mover advantage. The company later grew production at OMLs 4, 38 and 41 from 14,000 barrels of oil per day during acquisition to a peak rate of over 84,000 bopd, Punch reported.
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Avuru made this known at the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists January Technical/Business Meeting on mergers, acquisitions and divestments.
At the event, where shareholders were seated, Avuru said, “Seplat also began to invest in its gas business in 2010 in response to the Nigerian Government’s initiatives. The initiative was to improve the debilitating impact of poor power generation and supply in the country by opening the Domestic Supply Obligation pricing to market forces.
“We are strategically positioned to access Nigeria’s main demand centres with current well stock delivering around 300MMscfd (gross).”
According to Avuru, Seplat Petroleum has been able to work its way around downtime and losses, which are external negative factors, through the ability to utilise its assets in order to produce its reserves.
Recent acquisitions of Seplat Petroleum includes the Eland Oil and Gas Plc in December. Nairametrics reported that the acquisition was initially met with a major glitch but later in December, a court sanctioned the acquisition after the company settled with shareholders of Eland Oil and Gas Plc.
