Now that Occidental Petroleum has beaten Chevron to the acquisition of Anadarko Petroleum – and the strategic assets it holds in the prolific Permian Basin – one would think that the deal is cut-and-dry. Not so. The fallout of the massive US$57 billion deal has begun, and it pits one legendary billionaire against another legendary billionaire.

The Occidental purchase of Anadarko had all the signs of a classic takeover battle, swooping in after Chevron and Anadarko’s boards had approved their own US$48 billion deal. It was made only possible by Oxy CEO Vicki Hollub making a quick private plane trip that resulted in a last-minute US$10 billion capital injection from Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway that was contingent on the Anadarko purchase working. It did. And with the US Federal Trade Commission approving the deal, Anadarko will become part of Occidental by the end of 2019.

But not everyone is happy about the situation. Some investors and shareholders of Occidental believe that it badly overpaid for Anadarko, and were rankled by the deal bypassing a shareholder vote on the matter. The chief critic of this is activist Carl Icahn, who owns a US$1.6 billion stake in Occidental, who slammed it as ‘misguided’ with the CEO and Board ‘betting the company to serve their own agendas’. Icahn has already filed a lawsuit demanding access to Occidental’s books and records, and has just take the fight to a new level.

Last week, Icahn filed regulatory paperwork to call for a special shareholder meeting where he hopes to oust four of Occidental directors and modify the company’s charter through stockholder consent from ever engineering a similar takeover. Icahn wants Spencer Abraham, Eugene Batchelder, Margaret Foran and Avedick Poladian out from the Board, holding them responsible for the ‘fiasco’. He has, of course, nominated his own preferred replacements, including one of his portfolio manager’s Nicholas Graziano, his general counsel Andrew Langham, former Jarden finance chief Alan LeFevre and former president of Shell John Hofmeister. While Icahn has publicly acknowledge that the Anadarko takeover will probably go ahead, his aim is for the new Board to oversee ‘future extraordinary transactions to ensure that they are not consummated without shareholder approval where approval.’

Will it work? Before the proxy fight can go ahead, Icahn must get at least 20% of shareholders to agree to a meeting. That’s a tall order, given that the current crop of directors and Boards were re-elected at the May annual meeting, although with lower support. But there is certainly some appetite, given that Occidental’s stock has dropped nearly 17% since the initial April hostile takeover, reflecting market mood that it had bitten off more than it could chew.

All of this is playing out against a backdrop of pessimism in the Permian. Although the shale revolution had brought American crude production to record highs and sent its crude exports to a new record of 3.3 mmb/d in June, there are now cracks showing. With limited infrastructure, low prices and over-exploitation, the Permian boom is slowing down. Once an investor’s darling, financing has now become far tougher for Permian players, as the high production fall off rate means that companies have to spend more and more money to just maintain production. It’s a situation that is particularly negative for the small, nimble players that powered the initial shale revolution who lack the deep pockets to optimise shale assets over a longer production period. All across the Permian, independent players have lost between 50-100% of their market value, making them ripe for acquisition by majors and supermajors. Deals like the Anadarko one make sense in this context, but with the financial risk increasing, these blockbuster deals may never lead to blockbuster returns. Carl Icahn may not be able win his battle for the Occidental board, but he is certainly making a serious – and very valid - point.

The Occidental-Anadarko deal:

• US$57 billion cash-and-stock
• Oxy will received a US$10 billion injection from Berkshire Hathaway
• Oxy will sell US$8.8 billion of assets in Africa to Total
• Chevron receives a US$1 billion break-up fee

According to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria has the world’s 9th largest natural gas reserves (192 TCF of gas reserves). As at 2018, Nigeria exported over 1tcf of gas as Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to several countries. However domestically, we produce less than 4,000MW of power for over 180million people.

Think about this – imagine every Nigerian holding a 20W light bulb, that’s how much power we generate in Nigeria. In comparison, South Africa generates 42,000MW of power for a population of 57 million. We have the capacity to produce over 2 million Metric Tonnes of fertilizer (primarily urea) per year but we still import fertilizer. The Federal Government’s initiative to rejuvenate the agriculture sector is definitely the right thing to do for our economy, but fertilizer must be readily available to support the industry. Why do we import fertilizer when we have so much gas?

I could go on and on with these statistics, but you can see where I’m going with this so I won’t belabor the point. I will leave you with this mental image: imagine a man that lives with his family on the banks of a river that has fresh, clean water. Rather than collect and use this water directly from the river, he treks over 20km each day to buy bottled water from a company that collects the same water, bottles it and sells to him at a profit. This is the tragedy on Nigeria and it should make us all very sad.

Several indigenous companies like Nestoil were born and grown by the opportunities created by the local and international oil majors – NNPC and its subsidiaries – NGC, NAPIMS, Shell, Mobil, Agip, NDPHC. Nestoil’s main focus is the Engineering Procurement Construction and Commissioning of oil and gas pipelines and flowstations, essentially, infrastructure that supports upstream companies to produce and transport oil and natural gas, as well as and downstream companies to store and move their product. In our 28 years of doing business, we have built over 300km of pipelines of various sizes through the harshest terrain, ranging from dry land to seasonal swamp, to pure swamps, as well as some of the toughest and most volatile and hostile communities in Nigeria. I would be remiss if I do not use this opportunity to say a big thank you to those companies that gave us the opportunity to serve you. The over 2,000 direct staff and over 50,000 indirect staff we employ thank you. We are very grateful for the past opportunities given to us, and look forward to future opportunities that we can get.

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Market Watch 

Headline crude prices for the week beginning 15 July 2019 – Brent: US$66/b; WTI: US$59/b

• Global oil prices gained as US crude inventories shrank more than expected and a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico threatened American offshore production
• Tropical Storm Barry – which became a hurricane on landfall in Louisiana – was in the path of up to a third of Gulf of Mexico crude output, prompting producers to shut down most of their operations; resumption of normal service has begun
• At the same time, US crude oil stockpiles fell by almost 10 million barrels, far more than expected, with US refineries ramping up production ahead of summer demand to add some bullishness to the market
• The ongoing tensions between the US and Iran have not escalated further yet, but Iran has vowed to continue retaliating against the British seizure of its crude tanker in the Mediterranean off Gibraltar
• These factors have been enough to keep current crude prices trending higher, but oil producing club OPEC warns that the market will swing back into surplus next year, estimating that it is currently producing 560,000 b/d more than will be needed without even factoring in rising US shale production
• In Venezuela, where oil production has been crippled by sanctions, Chevron is reportedly seeking a waiver to continue operating in the country after the current waiver expires in July 27
• The US active oil and gas rig count fell once again, shedding a net five rigs (including 4 oil rigs) as merely stable prices reduced the appetite for investment; the total active rig count is now 958, 96 sites lower than this period last year
• As the threat of Tropical Storm Barry abated, crude prices fell back in line. Without any further disruptions on the horizon, Brent should trend in the US$62-64/b range and WTI in the US$55-57 range

Headlines of the week

Upstream

• Norway’s Equinor has bought a 16% stake in Swedish upstream firm Lundin Petroleum for US$650 million, which gains it an additional 2.6% interest in the giant Johan Sverdrup oil field bringing Equinor’s total stake up to 42.6%
• Inpex has picked up the exploration permit for Block AC/P66 in Australia’s Northwest Shelf, which lies in the vicinity of existing promising oil fields
• US independent Callon Petroleum Company has acquired Carrizo Oil & Gas for US$3.2 billion, deepening its holdings in the Permian and Eagle Ford shale basins, including 90,000 net acres in the prolific Delaware Basin
• Total has agreed to divest several of its non-core assets in the UK – covering the Balloch, Dumbarton, Lochranza, Drumtochty, Flyndre, Affleck, Cawdow, GoldenEagle, Scott and Telford fields – to Petrogas NEO for US$635 million
• CNOOC and Sinopec has signed a new agreement to collaborate on exploration activities in the Bohai Basin, Beibu Gulf, North Jiangsu and South Yellow Sea
• Murphy Oil has completed the sale of its Malaysian upstream assets to a unit of Thailand’s PTTEP for US$2.035 billion for five offshore projects in Sabah
• Seven upstream discoveries were made in Colombia in 2Q19, making it the market with the most discoveries during the period, leading India, Russia and Pakistan which each made three new oil and gas finds
• Turkey has vowed to continue drilling offshore Cyprus unless a cooperation proposal between Turkish and Greek Cypriots is accepted
• Encana is reportedly selling off its assets in eastern Oklahoma’s Arkoma Basin for US$165 million in cash to an undisclosed buyer
• Sinopec is hunting for partners or buyers for its Buck Lake assets in Alberta’s Duvernay shale basin in Canada, to reduce its current full ownership

Midstream/Downstream

• The Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Wolf has ruled out using state funds to save the Philadelphia Energy Solutions refinery after it was shuttered following a massive fire that took out the entire site last month
• Blackouts hit Venezuela’s Amuay and Cardon refineries, bringing the 955,000 b/d Paraguana refining Center to a complete halt on total lack of power
• Chevron Phillips Chemical (CP Chem) and Qatar Petroleum have agreed to develop a new 2 mtpa petrochemical complex on the US Gulf Coast, with the US Gulf Coast II Petrochemical Project drawing on NGLs from the Permian
• Marathon Petroleum will shut down the gasoline FCCU unit at its 585,000 b/d Galveston Bay Refinery in Texas for up to 8 weeks for repairs

Natural Gas/LNG

• Total has agreed to buy NG from Tellurian’s Driftwood LNG facility in Lake Charles, Louisiana in two separate deals – 1 million tons per annum for Total Gas & Power North America and 1.5 mtpa for Total Gas & Power – as well as invest US$500 million in Driftwood Holdings LP
• Mozambique has put on hold plans to raise funds for its stake in the Anadarko-led Mozambique LNG project, citing current bad market conditions
• ExxonMobil and Lucid Energy Group have agreed to collaborate on a long-term natural gas gathering and processing project, bringing natural gas from New Mexico’s Delaware Basin to the South Carlsbad gas processing system before being delivered to ExxonMobil’s downstream facilities in the US Gulf Coast