Letter from Africa: Upstream opportunities abound as majors step back

There are plenty of large sellers and smaller buyers, but there may be a medium-size missing piece

It would seem sensible, with the oil price surging past $75/bl, to continue with relatively underexplored and underexploited African plays within diversified portfolios. But assets with decent returns and operational flexibility are being considered divestment candidates by majors and large IOCs when, even in the very recent past, they would have been considered core. They now form part of an unprecedented opportunity set for would-be buyers. Not all the big boys are packing up shop in Africa. TotalEnergies remains committed and is even bucking the trend, with plans to drill one of the deepest deepwater wells, Ondjaba in Angola, as well as frontier wells in Cote d’Ivoire and Namibia. Italy’