Ayobami Adedinni
Indigenous oil and gas company Aiteo Group said it is negotiating an alternative financing package to fund $5 billion of investment that will grow its oil production to 250,000 barrels a day and increase gas supplies to about 300 million standard cubic feet per day.
Speaking with newsmen on the sidelines of the Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference in Abuja, the company’s Group Managing Director, Victor Okoronkwo who stated this added that the additional funding that will raise gas supply will also lead to increase in power generation to more than 1.2 gigawatts in Nigeria.
When asked how the funds will be raised, he said, “It is going to be a cocktail of financing options, depending on how we land with the alternative financing mechanism we are working out with our joint venture partners NNPC.”
Aiteo is among Nigerian producers that bought oil leases from majors such as Royal Dutch Shell Plc when overseas operators curbed operations in the West African nation due to oil attacks on infrastructures.
The repeated halting of its Nembe Creek Trunk Line, which runs to Shell’s export terminal for Bonny crude, has cost Aiteo and the government at least $2 billion in revenue over the last two years, Okoronkwo said.
Aiteo currently pumps about 90,000 bopd and forecasts production of 250,000 bbl in five years under the planned expansion. Daily natural gas production would increase six-fold to 300 MMscf in the period.
