By: Business Front

Tony Elumelu-backed indigenous oil firm Seplat Energy is studying whether to deploy a floating liquefied natural gas vessel on a major Nigerian oil and gas field it acquired from ExxonMobil in 2024.

The plan is contained in a company memo seen by industry observers and confirmed by Businessfront on Monday.

The proposed FLNG facility would be located in one of Seplat’s newly acquired oilfields in the Niger Delta, Nigeria’s oil-rich region.

Seplat has not made a public comment on the plan as of this reporting.

Why Nigeria’s oil firms are betting on FLNG

Seplat’s reported interest in FLNG fits into a broader pattern across Nigeria and the wider continent, where gas producers increasingly view floating liquefaction as the fastest route to monetize offshore reserves.

Unlike traditional onshore liquefaction plants, which can take a decade to build and are often delayed by land acquisition and community disputes, FLNG facilities can be deployed in three to five years, making them well suited to Africa’s deepwater and remote gas fields.

Okey Umeano, chief economist at Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission, has said Africa is well positioned to become a dominant gas supplier globally, citing the continent’s vast reserves and proximity to Europe.

“The lack of infrastructure has been one key reason Africa has yet to fully meet Europe’s gas demand since the war in Ukraine began in 2022,” Umeano said. “But FLNG can plug that gap more economically. By floating an offshore facility above a natural gas field to bring up, liquefy, store and then transfer the gas via tanker to Europe, FLNG takes inadequate infrastructure out of the game.”

Nigeria already has one major FLNG project in the pipeline through UTM Offshore, a 2.8 MTPA facility involving global commodity trader Vitol and Afreximbank, designed to tap feedstock gas from Seplat’s Yoho offshore field.

A final investment decision on that $5 billion project could be announced before the end of the year, according to earlier reporting.

Elumelu’s bet on Seplat’s gas ambitions

Moreover, Tony Elumelu invested roughly $550 million to acquire a 20.07% stake in Seplat in late 2025, buying out French group Maurel & Prom’s entire holding and making his company, Heirs Energies, the single largest shareholder in Nigeria’s leading independent oil and gas producer.

The move was widely seen as a way for Elumelu to diversify his business empire, which spans banking and financial services through United Bank for Africa, into gas as a long-term bet on Nigeria’s energy transition.

That investment has since roughly doubled in value, with Seplat’s stake now approaching $1 billion amid a rally in the company’s share price. Elumelu described the acquisition as a long-term commitment to African-owned energy infrastructure.

“This reflects our belief in Africa’s capacity to own, develop and manage its strategic resources. It is a long-term investment in Nigeria’s and Africa’s energy future and aligns with our objective of supporting energy security and industrial development,” he said.

Seplat’s gas push since the ExxonMobil deal

Seplat’s interest in FLNG follows its acquisition of ExxonMobil’s Nigerian onshore and shallow water assets, a deal worth $1.28 billion that was completed in 2024.

The acquisition significantly expanded Seplat’s oil and gas footprint and has been central to the company’s pivot toward becoming a gas-first producer.

Since the deal closed, Seplat’s gas output has jumped sharply, rising from 10 billion cubic feet in the fourth quarter of 2024 to 14.9 billion cubic feet in the first quarter of 2025, according to earlier company disclosures.

The company is currently working to unlock 850 million cubic feet per day of gas across three major projects, Anoh, Oben and Sapele, which together could serve between 15 million and 20 million Nigerians.

Seplat has also outlined plans to invest between $2.5 billion and $3 billion before the end of the decade across new gas projects, alongside a drilling campaign aimed at lifting output to around 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2030.