By Collins Edomaruse
In what seems like an antithetical move, the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) has reportedly blocked Renaissance Consortium from acquiring Shell’s upstream assets.
The NUPRC’s action, according industry analysts, is a direct affront to President Bola Tinubu’s continuous quest for investors.
According to them, stopping the assets purchase by Renaissance will only have one consequence – it will hamper Nigeria’s desire to up it’s daily crude oil production by as high as one million barrels per day.
Breaking the news of the development last week, Reuters, said NUPRC’s surprised many in the industry by declining to approve Shell’s $2.4 billion deal with the Renaissance consortium, dominated by local firms.
For a country that is dire straits financially, the most plausible key to turn the country fortune around is to allow credible investors access into its oil and gas sector with a view to contributing to meeting the government’s desire raise its daily crude oil production to boost her foreign reserve.
A check by METROWATCH reveal that Renaissance, not only a consortium of the industry’s best managers, it also has ties that stretch back more than half a century and is one of the biggest investors in Nigeria’s oil, which is the backbone of its economy and biggest foreign currency earner.l, according to Reuters.
Clementine Wallop, director for sub-Saharan Africa at political risk consultancy Horizon Engage, while speaking to Reuters on the issue, said the difficulty of getting NUPRC’s approval clashed with the president’s quest to win outside investment.
“On the one hand, you have a government that says we’re open for business. We want to improve the ease of doing business. We want to engage with the world’s largest energy investors, and on the other hand, there have been these long delays to the approvals,” Wallop said.”
