Newbury an Abuja based fully integrated energy company has created a consortium with legacy Italian oil field services concern Hydro drilling, subsidiaries of American global oil and gas drilling contractor Nabors industries ( a current partner of Hydro drilling), and a regional subsidiary of Haliburton an American multinational corporation responsible for most of the world's hydraulic fracturing operations.

 

The premise of the consortium is to identify opportunities to reposition both on and offshore marginal oil fields in country. Marginal oil fields are acreage carved out of existing permits that operators such as Shell Plc or Chevron Corp have chosen not to develop.

 

the marginal fields award initiative was borne out of the need to entrench the indigenization policy of government in the upstream sector of the oil and gas industry and build local content capacity. The scheme was also targeted at creating employment opportunities and encouraging increased capital inflow to the sector.

 

Nigeria’s oil production is at a thirty year low as the nation grappled with rampant theft from its pipelines and years of underinvestment in the midstream infrastructure as well as in the communities. Couple that with a lack of optionality in terms of upstream financing for the smaller producers it creates temporary stagnation in the sector. 

 

The alliance is timely and comes as companies and the government throughout the region are seeking effective solutions to meet the rapidly growing demand for safe, efficient, and responsible hydrocarbon production. The consortium will deploy best in class technology and off-balance sheet financing to boost production amongst the indigenous producers and then look to expand its offering regionally.