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Shell Oil Licenses, Pipelines in Nigeria to be Sold

Shell Oil Licenses, Pipelines in Nigeria to be Sold

From Independent Online

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell said on Monday that it intended to sell some assets in Nigeria after announcing a slump in global profits blamed on oil theft and sabotage.

“Some licences are up for sale, this includes some pipelines. We have not confirmed the specific licences,” Simon Henry, Shell’s chief financial officer told AFP in an emailed statement.

No further details were disclosed about the sale but Henry added: “There is a lot of interest from Nigerian indigenous companies.

“We will divest the licences and operating responsibility for the pipelines, there is more than one, if we see a potential deal,” he added.

Crude oil theft and pipeline vandalism are major problems in Nigeria, with estimates that it costs the country some $6 billion (4.4 billion euros) in revenue per year.

Shell, Nigeria’s largest operator, has blamed repeated oil thefts and sabotage of key pipelines as the major cause of spills and pollution in the oil-producing Niger Delta region in the southeast of the country.

Read more at iol.co.za