Seplat Petroleum to acquire Eland Oil and Gas in £382m deal

Independent oil and gas firm, Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc, is now set to complete the acquisition process of Aberdeen-headquartered upstream oil and gas exploration company, Eland Oil and Gas.

The deal, which has been in the making for a while, scaled a major hurdle recently in the form of gaining the endorsement of Eland Oil and Gas shareholders.

The result of the voting process revealed that 99.9% of shareholders gave their nod in two different meetings that birthed the resolution.

The acquisition will be consummated after a court approval is obtained on 17th December 2019. Thereafter, Seplat will ink a £382 million deal that will bestow on it, among other benefits, the ownership of the Oil and Mining Lease (OML) 40.

Seplat, dual listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) and the London Stock Exchange (LSE), had faced a couple of hitches before reaching this phase of the acquisition notably an unfavourable United Kingdom court verdict sometime in November.

It had won the confidence of Eland Oil and Gas board on the strength of its financial and technical capacity to manage Eland’s assets and deliver benefits to partners, employees, host communities, and Nigeria as a whole.

A statement in respect of the deal, said the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) had, on 23rd October 2019, expressed its satisfaction with Seplat and Eland meeting the condition of jointly notifying the petroleum minister of the acquisition and the acquisition of interests by Seplat in Eland.

Seplat currently trades on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange at N549.7 per share and on the London Stock Exchange at £1.20 per share.

Source: Ripples Nigeria