Eni Set to Leave Nigeria’s Onshore Oil Sector

Eni’s planned sale of its remaining 5% stake in the Renaissance Africa Energy joint venture would mark more than a minor portfolio adjustment. It is another signpost in the steady retreat of international oil companies from Nigeria’s onshore Niger Delta, where legacy assets are being handed to indigenous operators while the majors pivot towards deepwater and gas-linked opportunities. For Nigeria, the shift raises a sharper question: can local players turn troubled onshore acreage into dependable national output?

Niger Delta, Nigeria | May 13, 2026 - Eni is preparing to sell its remaining 5% stake in Nigeria’s Renaissance Africa Energy joint venture, a move that would close one of the last onshore chapters in the Italian major’s long Nigerian upstream story and deepen the restructuring of foreign oil company exposure in the Niger Delta.

The planned sale, held through Agip Energy and Natural Resources Nigeria Limited, comes after Eni’s larger retreat from Nigerian onshore production in 2024, when it completed the sale of Nigerian Agip Oil Company to Oando Plc. That transaction transferred a major portfolio of onshore oil, gas and power assets to a Nigerian indigenous operator, but left Eni’s 5% participating interest in the former Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited joint venture outside the deal.

That remaining stake is now also on the table. According to the African Energy Council report, Eni intends to keep the buyer’s identity and the value of the transaction confidential for now, while the preferred bidder undergoes a due diligence process that includes reputational-risk checks. Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company has emerged as the leading contender, following bids from Nigerian and international companies.

The Last Onshore Piece

The significance of the proposed sale is larger than the size of the stake. At 5%, Eni’s interest is the smallest of the four holdings in the Renaissance joint venture, behind Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited’s 55%, Renaissance Africa Energy Company’s 30% operating interest and TotalEnergies’ 10%. But it is also one of the last visible fragments of the international oil company (IOC) structure that long anchored Nigeria’s onshore joint-venture model.

Eni’s August 2024 sale of Nigerian Agip Oil Company to Oando marked the company’s primary onshore exit. At the time, Eni said the transaction was in line with its strategy to rationalise upstream activities by rebalancing its portfolio and divesting non-strategic assets. The company also made clear that the 5% interest in the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited joint venture was not part of that transaction and would be retained in its portfolio. That distinction now appears to have been temporary.

If completed, the new sale would move Eni’s Nigerian footprint further away from Niger Delta onshore production and towards the parts of the portfolio it has said it still intends to keep: deepwater projects, Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas and emerging opportunities such as agri-feedstock.

How Renaissance Became the Centre of the Story

The asset Eni is now preparing to leave is no longer the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited joint venture in name, but the Renaissance joint venture in substance.

The turning point came in January 2024, when Shell agreed to sell Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited to Renaissance, a consortium made up of four Nigerian exploration and production companies, ND Western, Aradel Energy, First Exploration and Petroleum Development Company and Waltersmith, alongside the international energy group Petrolin. The transaction was completed in March 2025 after approvals from Nigerian authorities, transferring Shell’s 30% stake in the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited joint venture to Renaissance and ending Shell’s onshore oil production presence in the Niger Delta.

Shell said the divestment aligned with its intention to simplify its Nigerian portfolio by exiting onshore oil production in the Niger Delta and focusing future investment on deepwater and integrated gas. Following completion, Renaissance became the operator of the joint venture, while Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited retained 55%, TotalEnergies held 10% and Agip Energy and Natural Resources retained 5%.

PricewaterhouseCoopers’ advisory account of the transaction underlined the scale of the deal: Renaissance was selected as preferred bidder in a competitive process, with PricewaterhouseCoopers advising the consortium on financial, tax, human resources and environmental, social and governance due diligence. The sale carried a $1.3 billion consideration to Shell, with an additional cash payment of up to $1.1 billion tied to regulatory approvals, bringing the widely cited transaction value to about $2.4 billion.

TotalEnergies Moves Next

The reshaping did not stop with Shell.

In January 2026, TotalEnergies signed a sale and purchase agreement with Vaaris for the sale of its 10% non-operated interest in the Renaissance joint venture licences. The French major said the Renaissance joint venture held 18 licences in the Niger Delta, with 15 producing mainly oil and three, Oil Mining Lease 23, Oil Mining Lease 28 and Oil Mining Lease 77, producing mainly gas.

The structure of the TotalEnergies transaction is important. TotalEnergies agreed to transfer its 10% participating interest in the 15 oil-producing licences to Vaaris, along with associated rights and obligations. It also agreed to transfer its participating interest in the three gas-producing licences, while retaining full economic interest in those gas assets, which it said currently account for about half of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas’s gas supply.

In other words, TotalEnergies is reducing direct exposure to the oil-heavy onshore licences while preserving the economic value of gas linked to Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas. The transaction remains subject to customary closing conditions, including regulatory approvals.

A Wider IOC Retreat

Eni’s planned 5% sale therefore lands in a sector already deep in transition. Shell has completed its exit from the former Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited operator position. TotalEnergies has agreed to divest its 10% non-operated stake, while retaining economic exposure to key gas assets. Eni, having already sold Nigerian Agip Oil Company to Oando, is now preparing to dispose of its final 5% interest in the same joint venture.

With Eni preparing a sale, all three foreign partners in the former Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited structure have now either completed, agreed or begun moves to reduce their direct onshore exposure.

The movement reflects a wider retreat by international oil companies from Nigeria’s onshore and shallow-water terrain, where mature assets have long been weighed down by crude theft, pipeline vandalism, community disruptions, environmental liabilities, regulatory uncertainty and foreign exchange constraints.

Nigeria’s regulators have previously estimated losses from crude theft and vandalism at more than $3.3 billion between January 2021 and February 2022. For the companies exiting, the commercial logic has been to simplify portfolios and prioritise offshore, deepwater and gas-linked assets. For Nigeria, the policy question is whether indigenous and regionally rooted operators can do what the majors increasingly chose not to do: stabilise mature Niger Delta production, manage community relations, control operating risk and convert legacy assets into dependable national output.

The Indigenous Operators Step Forward

Renaissance now sits at the centre of that test.

The consortium’s shareholder companies bring existing Niger Delta operating experience, modular refining exposure and a stated ambition to support Nigerian energy security and industrialisation. Its emergence as operator of the former Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited joint venture is one of the clearest signs yet of the transfer of legacy upstream assets from international majors to domestic and African-linked companies.

Oando’s acquisition of Nigerian Agip Oil Company sits in the same frame. Completed in August 2024 for $783 million, the deal doubled Oando’s participating interests in Oil Mining Leases 60, 61, 62 and 63 from 20% to 40% and expanded its exposure to producing fields, pipelines, gas plants, terminals and power assets. For Oando, the transaction was presented as a milestone in the rise of indigenous operators in Nigeria’s upstream sector.

The same logic now shadows Eni’s remaining 5%. If Sterling Oil Exploration and Energy Production Company or another bidder completes the deal, another slice of foreign-held participation in the Niger Delta’s legacy asset base will pass into different hands.

Eni Is Leaving Onshore, Not Nigeria

Yet the story is not a simple corporate departure from Nigeria. It is a portfolio rotation.

While Eni prepares to leave the onshore joint venture, it remains tied to Nigeria’s deepwater future. In March 2026, Nigeria’s presidency announced the resolution of the long-running Oil Prospecting Licence 245 dispute involving the Federal Government, Eni and Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited. The settlement cleared a pathway towards a final investment decision on the Zabazaba–Etan development, a deepwater project described by the presidency as capable of adding about 150,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s production capacity.

That distinction matters. Like Shell and TotalEnergies, Eni is not abandoning Nigeria’s hydrocarbon sector outright. It is stepping away from the troubled economics and operating complexity of onshore Niger Delta production while preserving exposure to deepwater and liquefied natural gas-linked opportunities, where security, scale and investment frameworks are seen as more attractive.

For Nigeria, the implications are twofold. The country is gaining stronger indigenous control over mature onshore assets, but it is also inheriting the full burden of making those assets work. Renaissance, Oando and the next buyer of Eni’s 5% stake will not merely be acquiring production interests. They will be taking on the unresolved politics of pipelines, communities, theft, ageing infrastructure and environmental trust.

Eni’s planned sale may be small in percentage terms. In the chronology of Nigeria’s oil sector, it is another marker of a much larger handover. The international majors are narrowing their Nigerian onshore bets. The onshore future is being pushed into local hands.