Seplat Energy Plc, the Nigerian oil and gas company that acquired ExxonMobil’s onshore and shallow-water assets in a landmark $1.28 billion deal, has successfully restored 49 idle wells to production as part of an aggressive turnaround strategy, and is already planning to bring 50 more back online this year.
The Lagos- and London-listed producer said the idle well restoration programme “formed the cornerstone of growth delivered offshore in 2025,” according to the company’s latest audited financial statement.
The campaign delivered an additional 48,600 barrels of oil per day in gross production capacity at a gross cost of approximately $60 million, a figure that underscores the capital efficiency of the programme relative to greenfield drilling.
“We successfully restored 49 idle wells as part of the 2025 idle well restoration programme,” the company said in its audited financial statement. “The 2025 programme was strongly value-adding, delivering an additional 48.6 kbopd gross production capacity during the year.”
Now, Seplat says it is ready to do it again, at scale.
50 more in the pipeline
The company has set a target of restoring an additional 50 wells through 2026, extending the programme into a second phase even as it acknowledges diminishing returns.
“Our base assumption is that production additions per well will decline as the idle well portfolio matures,” the company noted, signalling to investors that while the economics remain compelling, the low-hanging fruit is gradually being picked.
The idle well strategy sits at the heart of what Roger Brown, Seplat’s chief executive has cast as a broader transformation of assets that were, in his words, “historically under-financed” under ExxonMobil’s stewardship.
Brown has described Seplat’s offshore investments as witnessing renewed vigour, resulting in unlocked capacity and enhanced reliability, a pivot that has yielded immediate results in terms of elevated production capacity.
Offshore performance surges
The wells programme helped propel offshore output to new highs in 2025. According to the annual report, Seplat’s offshore assets delivered average daily working interest production of 76,023 barrels of oil equivalent per day, representing year-on-year growth of approximately 9 percent on a pro-forma basis. Management noted the strong performance was “aided by the idle well recovery programme and improved asset performance,” partially offset by planned maintenance activities and an outage at the Yoho platform following a fire in the third quarter.
The Yoho platform, which has remained out of service since the fire, is expected to return to production in the second quarter of 2026, with the production uplift from restoring Yoho estimated at approximately 20,000 barrels per day. That recovery, combined with the second phase of the idle well programme, is expected to provide material volume support as Seplat navigates a year of significant capital deployment.
The idle well revival sits inside a much larger story of financial transformation. Revenue rose 144 percent year-over-year to $2.7 billion in 2025, despite a 12 perent year-over-year decline in oil prices, while adjusted EBITDA reached $1.27 billion, representing a 47 percent margin. Operating cash flow came in at $1.17 billion and net debt fell to $673 million, ending the year at 0.5 times net debt-to-EBITDA.
Group production rose 148 percent to 131,506 barrels of oil equivalent per day, reflecting the first full year of consolidated operations following the MPNU acquisition.
Eyes on 2030
Looking beyond the well programme, Seplat has outlined a broader production ambition. The company expects to grow its working-interest production from about 134,000 boepd in mid-2025 to over 200,000 boepd by 2030, underpinned by a five-year capital expenditure plan of up to $3 billion, with plans to drill between 120 and 150 new wells and validate up to three new gas projects.
In 2026 specifically, the company says production growth will be driven by higher-value natural gas liquids and gas as the ANOH Gas Plant ramps toward full capacity and an expansion at its Oso facility doubles offshore gas sales capacity.
The annual report also confirms that 2026 marks the start of a five-year period in which Seplat targets aggregate shareholder distributions of $1 billion, paid at 40 percent to 50 percent of free cash flow, with a committed minimum of $120 million, or $0.20 per share, in any given year.
Production guidance for 2026 stands at 135,000 to 155,000 boepd, representing a roughly 10 per cent uplift at the midpoint over 2025.
