Seplat Focuses on Domestic Growth Before Any African Expansion, CEO Says

Seplat Energy’s chief executive has delivered a clear message to investors and competitors: the company is not in a rush to expand beyond Nigeria. Speaking at the company’s annual results presentation in Lagos, chairman and CEO Miguel Alemán said Seplat has “a lot to chew on” domestically before considering any move into other African markets, a positioning that marks a deliberate departure from the aggressive continental expansion strategies being pursued by some of the company’s peers.

The announcement comes after Seplat successfully completed its acquisition of ExxonMobil’s Nigerian shallow-water assets last year, a deal that added significant production capacity and provided the company with a stronger platform within Nigeria’s maturing but still complex oil and gas sector. Rather than use the expanded portfolio as a launchpad for cross-border growth, Seplat is directing its capital and management attention toward extracting more value from its existing Nigerian assets.

“We are not going to expand for the sake of expanding,” Alemán told analysts. “We have built something substantial here in Nigeria, and we believe there is far more growth available to us in this market before we need to look elsewhere. Our shareholders expect disciplined capital allocation, not geography for its own sake.”

The Nigerian Opportunity

Nigeria’s oil and gas sector is at an inflection point. Decades of underinvestment, regulatory uncertainty, and infrastructure decay have left the country producing well below its estimated potential. But a combination of policy reforms, including the Petroleum Industry Act, which created a clearer commercial framework for upstream operations, and a renewed focus on gas-fired power generation has created conditions that forward-thinking operators can exploit.

Seplat is targeting several levers within Nigeria. First, it wants to increase recovery rates from its existing fields, many of which have been producing for more than 50 years but retain substantial trapped reserves. Second, it is investing in gas processing infrastructure to supply the domestic power sector, which has been chronically short of feedstock. Third, it is exploring opportunities in the deepwater basin, where large discoveries have been made but require massive capital to develop.

The company reported a 12 percent increase in production in its most recent quarterly results, with output reaching approximately 127,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. Gas production, which now accounts for more than 40 percent of the total, has been growing at an even faster rate as Seplat connects new wells to its export and domestic gas pipelines.

Domestic Discipline in a Continental Context

Seplat’s caution stands in contrast to the strategies being pursued by several other African energy companies. From TotalEnergies’ expansion into Mozambique LNG to Eni’s deepwater plays off Ghana and Ivory Coast, and from Ghana’s GNPC building upstream capabilities across West Africa to Angolan major Sonangol’s international ventures, many African energy players are racing to build regional portfolios.

The logic is straightforward: diversification reduces concentration risk, and growth in one country can fund investment in another. But expansion also brings exposure to new regulatory regimes, political risks, and operational complexities that can erode returns if not managed carefully.

Seplat’s board appears to have concluded that the costs of early expansion outweigh the benefits, that the Nigerian market, properly served, can deliver sufficient returns to keep shareholders satisfied without the added friction of managing assets in multiple jurisdictions.

“We have a deep understanding of this operating environment,” Alemán said. “We know the regulators, we know the communities, we know the infrastructure constraints. That knowledge is an advantage. If we go somewhere else, we start from scratch.”

What Comes Next

For the foreseeable future, Seplat’s strategy appears fixed: stay in Nigeria, grow production, invest in gas, and maintain financial discipline. The company’s debt-to-EBITDA ratio has been declining, and management has signaled that it will prioritize share buybacks and dividend increases over large-scale acquisitions.

That does not mean the company will never expand. Industry observers note that Seplat has retained advisors to monitor potential acquisition opportunities in Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Egypt, markets where its technical capabilities and Nigerian operational experience could be relevant. But any move would be measured, structured, and carefully timed, not the kind of opportunistic transaction that has sometimes undermined African energy companies in the past.

For now, the focus is Nigeria. And for a company that has navigated years of political and economic turbulence in the Niger Delta, that is not a limitation. It is a strategy.