(Adds quote, detail on banks, technical advisor and oil
offtaker)
By Libby George
LAGOS, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Heirs Holding announced
on Friday it had bought a 45% stake in an onshore oilfield as
part of a deal that it said included $1.1 billion in financing
from a consortium of global and regional banks and investors.
International oil majors have been trying to sell stakes in
onshore oilfields in Nigeria for years as they pivot their
investments to assets offshore the West African nation and to
other regions.
Shell, Total and Eni each sold stakes in the OML 17 field,
which has production capacity of 27,000 barrels of oil
equivalent per day and estimated reserves of 1.2 billion barrels
of oil equivalent, Heirs said.
TNOG Oil and Gas Limited, which Heirs owns alongside
Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc, officially took the
stake.
"The acquisition of such a high-quality asset, with
significant potential for further growth, is a strong statement
of our confidence in Nigeria," Tony Elumelu, the chairman of
Heirs Holdings, Transcorp and United Bank for Africa Plc, said
in a statement.
In a separate statement, Shell Production and Development
Company of Nigeria (SPDC) announced a $533 million sale of its
30% stake in the OML and said it had received all necessary
approvals from Nigerian authorities.
Standard Chartered Plc, United Capital Plc and a syndicate
of lending institutions advised on the deal, which involves
Schlumberger as a technical partner and Shell's trading arm as
an oil offtaker.
(Reporting by Libby George
Editing by Nick Macfie and Paul Simao)
