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Equinor has exited the upstream business in Nigeria and Azerbaijan after completing oil and gas asset sales of $2 billion, the Norwegian energy major said on Monday.
Equinor will receive $745 million for its portfolio in Azerbaijan and up to $1.2 billion for the sale of its Nigerian assets, said the company, which announced the deals last year and said they were part of its strategy to streamline its upstream business.
In Nigeria, Equinor sold its assets to Chappal Energies. These included a 53.85% ownership in oil and gas lease OML 128, including the unitized 20.21% stake in the Agbami oil field, operated by Chevron.
In Azerbaijan, the Norwegian firm sold its shares of 7.27% in Azeri Chirag Gunashli (ACG) with 6.655% to SOCAR (State Oil Company of Azerbaijan) and 0.615% to India’s ONGC. Equinor also sold it total shares of 8.71% in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, with 7.96% to SOCAR and 0.75% to ONGC.
“With these exits we realise value and execute on our strategy to focus the international portfolio, and in combination with recent acquisitions and investments in our competitive projects, we seek to sustain long-term production and profitability,” said Philippe Mathieu, executive vice president for international exploration and production in Equinor.
These divestments and exits “enable investments to deepen further in countries where Equinor can add the most value and build a more focused and robust international portfolio,” the Norwegian company said.
Just last week, Equinor and Shell announced they would merge their UK oil and gas assets in a 50/50 joint venture which will be the largest independent oil and gas producer in the UK North Sea.
Shell and Equinor are currently defending in court their plans to develop the planned Jackdaw and Rosebank oil and gas projects in the UK North Sea, respectively, after environmentalists won landmark court battles earlier this year and the Labour government dropped its right to challenge judicial reviews brought against the development consents for the fields.
