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With Funsho Arogundade
(08111813063) [email protected]
Indeed, only very few Nigerian businessmen have built a fortune as quietly and enduringly as the retired General Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma. Since his retirement, 87-year old Danjuma has stepped effortlessly into the boardrooms of global energy and become one of Africa’s most respected oil magnates through his company, South Atlantic Petroleum Ltd. (SAPETRO) founded in 1995.
At a time when Nigeria’s deep offshore was still largely unproven and considered too risky and too expensive by many local players, Danjuma took a huge bet on deepwater. In 1998, his gamble paid off as the Federal Government awarded SAPETRO OPL 246, a deepwater licence located about 120 to 160 kilometres south of Port Harcourt. He partnered Total, now TotalEnergies, as operator, and by 2000, SAPETRO drilled into history as they discovered the Akpo field, followed by the giant Egina field, Egina South and Preowei. It was a discovery that changed the fortunes of the company and cemented Danjuma’s place in Nigeria’s oil story.
In 2006, SAPETRO sold a 45 per cent working interest in the licence, by then converted to OML 130, to China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) for $2.27 billion in cash. The deal remains one of the largest ever by a Nigerian indigenous oil company and provided the capital base for Danjuma’s wider business and philanthropic interests. SAPETRO kept a stake in the licence, which it still holds.
More than two decades after the first discovery, Danjuma is still expanding as recent reports have it that the octogenarian billionaire has agreed to buy a 40% stake in an offshore oil block from TotalEnergies, deepening its partnership with the French energy major in Nigeria’s deep waters.
The firm has signed a farm-out agreement to transfer a 40 per cent participating interest in block OPL 257 —which lies about 150 kilometres off the Nigerian coast— to Danjuma’s SAPETRO at an undisclosed figure. Once completed, TotalEnergies will keep 50 per cent and remain operator while SAPETRO will hold 40per cent and Conoil, controlled by billionaire Mike Adenuga, will retain 10 per cent . TotalEnergies plans to start an appraisal campaign on the OPL 257 side of the field in the coming months. If successful, Egina South could be developed as a tie-back to the Egina floating production, storage and offloading vessel, moored about 30 kilometres away.
With this new deal, it is safer to say that Danjuma’s oil business remains a model of patience, partnership and long-term vision — a deepwater empire built not overnight, but over 30 years of calculated risk.
