It is becoming the fad for Nigerian companies to go funds shopping in offshore exchanges; Lekoil recently jumped the band wagon. Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Lekan Akinyemi explains:

Tell us more about Lekoil
Lekoil was founded in December 2010 and is an Africa-focused company with assets in Nigeria and Namibia with a strong technical and commercial team. We recently listed on the AIM exchange in London.

What is the market focus of Lekoil?
It is a Pan-African company with a balanced portfolio of producing and exploration assets. Near-term focus is in sub-Saharan Africa.

What difference does Lekoil bring to the table?
Access to capital markets, strong technical team, disciplined approach to building an asset portfolio and strong local partnerships.

Why Africa?
Historically, capital expenditure relative to resource availability has shown that Africa is under explored. In the context of Africa, Nigeria is also under explored – we haven’t really had to do much in terms of enhanced oil recovery in Nigeria and there are some areas where we think that if you bring new technology to bear, there’s a lot that can be done. You get such a fantastic return from what is already in place that sometimes people don’t push too hard on the exploration side. But there’s a lot of room for exploration in Nigeria and many parts of Africa.

What is your perspective on Nigerian oil & gas industry reform?
We like the idea that indigenous companies should be allowed to grow, to flourish and to attract capital. Over the decades the majors and large service companies have done a fantastic job in terms of knowledge transfer to Nigerians. However, reforms like this are significant and should be given time, we have to keep going at it to get it done.

Many African countries are discovering their hydrocarbon assets. What does it mean for Lekoil in terms of investment options?

Good question. We have a couple of assets in Namibia. They are in a different phase of the assets life cycle; in terms of differentiation, a lot of the assets in Nigeria fall into either producing or near production assets, except for the ones in the Dahomey Basin. In the rest of Africa, there is a tendency to take more risks on the geological and technological side, but sometimes, a little bit less risk, in terms of just the working environment. In other words there are opportunities to balance risk in our portfolio of assets.

How do you think Nigeria can improve indigenous participation in the industry?
Improvements can be made with better access to capital, by improving structures and transparency.

What is Lekoil’s growth aspiration in the coming years?
Lekoil intends to use its access to capital and strong local partnerships to build a multi-asset exploration, development and production business in Africa.

Does Lekoil have the capacity of to take over assets being disposed by some multinationals in Nigeria like Shell, Petrobras?

From a disciplined portfolio perspective, we are well positioned to acquire divestment assets because of our access to the capital markets. We do intend to participate in divestments where we believe we are able to unlock value through a combination of smart financing, technical expertise and partnerships.