Shell is selling the pipeline network supplying more than 130 Nigerian businesses. Meanwhile, a separately identified Vaaris company has completed an $800 million acquisition of interests in the former Shell-operated oil joint venture. Corporate announcements, legal advisers’ disclosures and Seplat Energy’s financial statements reveal important details — and equally important limits to what can be established.
AN INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INVESTIGATION
By the Donovan–Shell Archive
10 November 2026
Researched and drafted with assistance from ChatGPT, using original Shell and TotalEnergies corporate announcements, Nigerian Stock Exchange regulatory disclosures, financial statements, transaction advisers’ published records, contemporaneous Nigerian reporting and historical material preserved in the Donovan–Shell Archive.
Shell is preparing to withdraw from a business that has connected Nigerian factories to natural gas for more than a quarter of a century. The proposed buyer is Vaaris Energy Limited. But the announcement comes amid another significant change in the country’s petroleum industry: a separately identified company, Vaaris Resources JVCo Limited, has acquired interests in the former Shell-operated Niger Delta joint venture in an $800 million transaction supported by $600 million in secured borrowing facilities. The transactions concern different assets, different sellers and distinct legal entities. New regulatory documents establish some of the ownership relationships behind the larger acquisition, while leaving important questions about Shell’s own gas-network sale unanswered.
A Documentary Investigation into Two Louisiana LNG Contracts, a New York Court Judgment and the Fine Print Governing Shell’s American Gas Supplies
AN INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INVESTIGATION
Australia’s gas giants turn on one another over domestic supply, export profits and who should pay for the government’s proposed gas reservation scheme. Behind the corporate accusations lies a more uncomfortable question: why should a major gas-exporting nation struggle to guarantee affordable gas for its own citizens?
