(Photo Caption) From left to right: Haruna Jalo-Waziri, Executive Director, Capital Markets Division, The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE); Oscar Onyema, NSE Chief Executive; Akin Akinfemiwa, Group Chief Executive, Forte Oil Plc and Julius Omodayo-Owotuga, the company’s Group Chief Finance Officer, at the Facts Behind the Figures presentation at the Exchange on Friday in Lagos.
Forte Oil Plc said on Friday it was in talks for a strategic partnership with a major refinery for local refining of petroleum products.
Managing Director and Chief Executive, Akin Akinfemiwa said Forte Oil, majority owned by Femi Otedola, was exploring partnerships and joint ventures for local refining of petroleum products.
Addressing stockbrokers and investors at the “Facts Behind the Figures,” on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) in Lagos, Akinfemiwa said: “We are aggressively pursuing M&A (mergers and acquisition) opportunities along the energy value chain”.
Forte Oil, formerly African Petroleum with interests in fuel distribution and operates the Geregu Power plant, plans to diversify into the upstream sector through acquisition of marginal oilfields.
Nigeria’s Federal Government is seeking to refurbish its decrepit refineries, as the country is still mainly dependent on exporting crude oil for imports of refined products.
It has also been seeking new investments to reduce reliance on imported oil products that consume a large portion of Nigeria’s scarce foreign currency reserves, especially with oil prices low.
The announcement is coming two months after rival energy group- Oando said in May it was in talks to work with Italian energy company Eni to rehabilitate the Port Harcourt Refinery, one of Nigeria’s four refineries.
Shares of Forte rose 4.99% on Friday to N60.37, giving it a market value of N78.6bn ($216m), even as its market price has fallen 32% year-to-date according to Reuters, after last year’s 74% slump.
Also, Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote is building an $17bn oil refinery with a capacity of around 650,000 barrels a day, planned to start operation by 2019.
