Royal Dutch Shell has sealed a deal worth $300 million for gas development and distribution in Nigeria.
The deal signed with Shoreline Energy is to develop, market and distribute natural gas around Lagos, the commercial capital of Africa’s largest economy.
Shell, Financial Times reported yesterday, would help finance and develop a transmission and distribution pipeline network to generate revenues from a 20-year gas concession, originally owned by Gasland Company, in which Shoreline took a 75 per cent stake in 2015.
General Manager for subsidiary, Philip Mshelbila, said the deal, which will be announced as early as today (Monday), was “an important next step in the expansion of the Nigerian domestic gas market.”
The deal gives an opportunity to Shoreline to diversify into the gas business after years of fiscal troubles as oil prices fell and renewed militancy hurt production and exports.
Chairman of Gasland and chief executive of Shoreline, Kola Karim, said: “The partnership is a significant boost to the gas supply efforts of the federal and Lagos State governments and will deliver tangible benefits to companies and households in Lagos.”
The agreement is to develop gas pipeline infrastructure in the country in a deal that highlights the push by the world’s biggest energy groups to entrench demand for gas in growing economies of Africa.
The deal is the latest example of global energy groups investing in terminals, pipelines and power infrastructure around Africa as a way to promote gas as the best solution to the continent’s chronic shortage of electricity generating capacity.
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