TotalEnergies has closed the sale of its 10 percent non-operated stake in the Renaissance joint venture’s oil licences in Nigeria to Vaaris Energy Limited for $800 million, BusinessDay reported, citing a statement from TotalEnergies EP Nigeria, the company’s local subsidiary.
The sale covers the oil side of the venture only. TotalEnergies keeps its full economic interest in the venture’s three gas licences, OML 23, OML 28 and OML 77, which currently supply about 50 percent of the gas going to Nigeria LNG, the export plant on Bonny Island in which TotalEnergies is also a shareholder. The Renaissance assets are the former Shell onshore business: Shell agreed in 2024 to sell its Nigerian onshore subsidiary to a consortium of local companies, which rebranded the assets as Renaissance after that deal closed, and the licences sit in a joint venture in which Nigerian National Petroleum Company is the majority owner.
Onshore oil in the Niger Delta has become costly and difficult to run because of crude theft, pipeline sabotage and spills, while gas feeding a liquefaction plant ships cargoes to Europe and Asia on firmer demand. The disposal is the latest in a series by TotalEnergies of non-operated onshore positions, as the majors shift capital toward deepwater projects and LNG and Nigerian operators take up what they leave behind.
The open question for the assets is investment: many of the licences need heavy spending on pipelines, flow stations and security to hold production steady, and whether the new domestic owners can fund that programme will decide what the handover is worth.