Nigeria: Anglo-Dutch company Shell invests $6 billion in oil and gas

Anglo-Dutch company Shell is planning to invest a total of 6 billion dollars in the country’s oil and gas industry, including 5 billion dollars in crude oil and 1 billion dollars in gas, according to information made public on Thursday 7 December by Ajuri Ngelale, spokesman for the Nigerian presidency.

This development follows a meeting between Nigerian President Bola Tinubu and Zoe Yujnovich, Shell’s Director of Upstream Operations.

The latter expressed enthusiasm about an imminent opportunity to inject $5 billion into the Bonga North offshore oil project in OML 118.

Yujnovich stressed the urgency of realising this investment as soon as possible, underlining Shell’s commitment to establishing a steady stream of new investments in Nigeria.

This initiative is part of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s efforts to strengthen the country’s oil and gas sector.

According to Ajuri Ngelale, President Bola Tinubu is committed to removing all bottlenecks to the flow of capital into the Nigerian energy industry.

It is potentially with this in mind that the country has withdrawn its complaints against the Italian company Eni in the OPL 245 affair.

Nigeria has been engaged in a legal battle against Shell and Eni over OPL 245 for ten years.

On Thursday 16 November, Nigeria put an end to the legal action brought against Eni in connection with the exploitation of OPL 245.

The West African country’s Ministry of Justice indicated that it would unconditionally drop the claims brought before the Italian courts, with effect from 17 November at the latest.