The Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria says indigenous oil companies do not have the financial strength to fund the assets they acquired from international oil companies .Osifo said there are practical cases of local companies that bought some assets from IOCs but the assets depleted because “they can not manage them very well”.
“TotalEnergies built one field alone with $16 billion. How many banks in Nigeria would be able to fund a project of that magnitude? If you join all the banks’ capital bases together, I am not sure they can fund a $16 billion project. That shows you how capital-intensive the projects are,” Osifo said.
“They can easily attract funding because, over the years, they have developed that partnership. They have developed their creditworthiness, but it will be difficult for a local company to go to Bank of America or go to Bank of China to attract funding.”