‘Deepwater Projects Must be Competitive to Attract Capital’

Esso, the ExxonMobil affiliate in Nigeria, has called for collaborative steps to enhance the competitiveness of Nigerian projects to attract global capital and investment.

Speaking at the Upstream Leadership Dialogue Session during the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) 2026 in Abuja, Chairman and Managing Director of ExxonMobil affiliates in Nigeria, Jagir Baxi, emphasised the need for Nigeria’s Deepwater projects to be globally competitive in order to attract the necessary investment.

“Our strategy is to improve the competitiveness of our business in Nigeria so it can compete within our global portfolio,” Baxi stated.

He noted that recent policy and regulatory reforms have laid a solid foundation, and it is now up to operators and partners to collaborate and turn these frameworks into project-specific definitions that can achieve bankable projects.

Baxi highlighted Esso’s efforts to improve reliability, performance, and lower cost of its Nigerian operations, enabling it to compete for funding globally.

He cited the example of the deepwater Usan field, where the company and its partners are preparing to commit $1 billion to capture 30,000 to 40,000 barrels of new production capacity, which will contribute meaningfully towards the national vision of 2 million barrels per day by 2027, and establish Usan as a hub for the development of adjacent discovered resources.