Page 8 - AfrOil Week 22 2022

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

Meanwhile, Capricorn CEO Simon Thomson With renewed focus and ambition, the com-
will resign from his post and act as chairman of bined group will have the financial flexibility to
the Integration Steering Committee to oversee accelerate organic growth and pursue further
the merger. opportunities as they arise, while creating value
This process will encompass the establish- for shareholders and host countries alike.”
ment of a new board of directors with five addi- Thomson, for his part, indicated that the
tional members, including two non-executive tie-up might allow the new combined company
directors from Tullow and three non-executive to seek out new projects in Africa. “This combi-
directors from Capricorn. nation will allow the two companies to acceler-
Dhir described the merger as “a perfect fit.” ate investment in new opportunities across the
He added: “[This] combination draws on the continent, while retaining a resilient balance
proud heritage of both Tullow and Capricorn sheet and delivering attractive returns to share-
to create a leading African energy company. holders,” he said. ™

PERFORMANCE
NUPRC chief blames theft for Nigerian oil

sector’s underperformance in Q1-2022

NIGERIA GBENGA Komolafe, the head of the Nigerian technical allowable [maximum],” he said.
Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission “Unfortunately, the country can only produce
(NUPRC), has said that theft and sabotage are about 1.9mn [bpd of oil], out of which only
effectively reducing the country’s oil production about 1.35mn [bpd of oil] is received at the ter-
capacity by more than 40%. minals due to massive crude oil theft and pipe-
Speaking at the Iwereland Petroleum Com- line vandalism.”
munities Summit of the Host Communities’ These lost barrels represent lost money and
Development Trusts, Komolafe noted that Nige- undeveloped potential, as well as lost produc-
ria was technically capable of extracting more tion and unused capacity, Komolafe said. Just
than 2mn barrels per day of crude oil. in the first quarter of this year, he said, Nigeria
Nevertheless, the country is not reaching that lost 9mn barrels of oil out of the 141mn barrels
threshold and is actually operating far below extracted to theft, or more than 6% of the total.
capacity because of widespread theft and sabo- Based on present crude prices of $116 per barrel,
tage in the Niger River Delta region, he stated, this represents a loss of $1bn in government rev-
according to a report published by Vanguard on enue, or NGN434bn at official exchange rates.
May 31. This figure is also equivalent to 90% of Delta
“Currently, Nigeria has the potential to State’s annual budget of about NGN479bn, he
produce about 2.3mn [bpd of oil], being the added.

Map of Nigeria’s coastal oil pipelines and terminals (Image: Theodora.com)

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 22 01•June•2022