By Charles Pemu 
ABUJA—President Bola Tinubu has announced that Shell has taken a Final Investment Decision (FID) on a $2 billion offshore gas project in the HI Field (OML 144), marking a significant boost for Nigeria’s gas commercialization and export goals.
The Non-Associated Gas (NAG) development is projected to deliver approximately 350 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscf/d) from 2028, a volume equivalent to nearly one-third of the feedgas requirements for the Nigeria LNG Limited’s Train 7 project.
According to Bayo Onanuga, Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, this FID is Nigeria’s third major oil and gas investment in the last 18 months and brings the total significant upstream investment commitments under the Tinubu administration to over $8 billion since 2023.
The Presidency hailed the investment as a clear validation of the administration’s energy sector reforms, which introduced unprecedented fiscal incentives and simplified regulatory processes.
“This major FID announcement by Shell, their second in one year, is a clear validation of our wide-ranging reform efforts and a signal to the world that Nigeria is fully open for business and investment,” President Tinubu stated.
Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Arowolo Verheijen, emphasised the strategic importance of the projects: “With the Ubeta FID and now the HI FID, we have secured the gas supply needed to make NLNG Train 7 not just possible, but transformative.”
Together, the newly approved HI gas project (discovered in 1985) and the earlier Ubeta gas project are expected to supply up to 15 percent of NLNG’s total feedgas requirements across all seven trains.
The Shell project, which follows the Ubeta NAG project and the Bonga North deepwater project, is expected to significantly strengthen the reliability of Nigeria’s LNG exports, expand LPG supply for domestic use, and boost foreign exchange earnings