NAEC Energy conference 2026: Access to Assets Must Include Route to Market says Nembe E&P
CHIGOZIE AMADI
Nembe Exploration and Production Company Limited has said access to oil assets is meaningless without access to market, capital and people, recounting how its 45% stake in OML 29 was shut in for 15 months due to pipeline breach.
Delivering a goodwill address at the NAEC Energy Conference 2026 in Lagos on behalf of the Board and Management, Group Head, Corporate Communications, Ndiana-Abasi Matthew, who was represented by Kaetochukwu Onudugo said the company’s experience shows three gates to asset access — license, evacuation route, and capital/people.
Speaking on the theme, ‘Access to Assets: Empowering Players and Driving Growth’, Matthew said Nembe E&P, formerly Aiteo Eastern E&P, acquired OML 29 and the Nembe Creek Trunk Line in 2015 from a Shell-led JV, taking over the lease that contains Oloibiri where oil was first found 70 years ago.
“The license is only the first gate,” he said, noting that in February 2022 the trunk line to Bonny was breached, forcing a force majeure that lasted till May 2023. About 1.7 billion barrels of 2b reserves were stranded.
To unlock the asset, the NNPC/Nembe JV built an alternative evacuation system — a temporary processing facility, jetty at Nembe, shuttle vessels and an FSO offshore Brass.Production restarted in May 2023, with the first cargo of the new 29-degree API low-sulphur Nembe crude grade sailing in October 2023.
Since then, the company has lifted over 40 cargoes. In 2025, OML 29 produced 13.3 million barrels, reconciled with the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), with 14 cargoes exported and over 99.8% delivery efficiency from jetty to terminal.
On growth, Matthew said NUPRC approved the Santa Barbara field development and Okoroba appraisal plans in 2025, with combined initial potential of about 66,000 barrels per day, plus additional volumes from Okoroba. Its permanent Central Processing Facility is now in final Pre-Startup Safety Review.
He noted that indigenous operators now supply more than half of Nigeria’s crude following divestments by Mobil, Shell, Agip and Equinor to Seplat, Renaissance, Oando and Chappal, and the conclusion of the 2025 licensing round with 37 blocks to 31 companies, mostly Nigerian.
He also cited 172 Host Community Development Trusts incorporated under the PIA. Matthew made two requests to government and one to the press.
“Operators must file complete plans on time, and the Commission can keep approving them at the pace it showed us in 2025. A plan that waits a year delays a year of barrels,” he said.
He called for shared, open-access evacuation infrastructure on published terms, saying while Nembe built its own route “under duress, the next operator should not have to.
”He also urged fair reporting, noting NUPRC data showed crude losses at about 10,000 bpd in the first seven months of 2025 — the lowest in 16 years — and four consecutive months of OPEC quota compliance to August.“Capital reads what you write.
A fair account with failures and fixes in the same paragraph is itself a form of access to assets,” he said.
Delivering greetings from Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Benedict Peters and GMD Victor Okoronkwo, Matthew commended NAEC for nearly four decades of covering the upstream industry and for a theme “every operator has had to answer.”
