The Afren Plc Company Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2250 words

The Afren Plc Company - Essay Example The company’s portfolios include about 15 assets situated across six African states, including Nigeria, Gabon, Ghana, Sao Tome, Ivory Coast, and Congo (Gouyu, 2011:74). Currently, the business portfolios together produce about 26,000 barrels of oil in a single day. In addition, the company controls key regions that currently hold about 160 million oil barrels. The company started due to the initial idea of Rilwanu Lukman, who is a former chair, and currently controls about 3 % of the total company’s shares. Currently, a number of institutional investors jointly own the company in conjunction with various banking and capital management businesses. Though it has its headquarters in London, UK, the company’s main operations are in Nigeria, through its Nigerian branch, based at the Octagon building in Lagos. The company also controls a 40 % stake in the First Hydrocarbon Nigeria Company (Hilyard, 2008:159). The company started towards the end of the year 2004. Its in ception came after a group of businesspersons joined to raise $ 1 million dollars for the start. They based their onslaught on the African sector on the ideology of intense focus and analyzing on the mode of operation of the African leaders and the continent in general. This strategy has been very successful, as, over the years, it has enabled the company to venture into areas that were previously considered impenetrable in terms of suspicious administrations and heavy bureaucracy. The business achieved this through incorporating the local businesses, recruiting local employees, and involving itself with the citizens that wield control of the West Africa oil regions. The business’ initial transaction consisted of a chance to buy a small and untouched region situated in the Block 1 area of Nigeria (Michel, 2003:199). The block was known as Sao Tome and Principe zone. After the successful transaction, the company embarked on a strategy that involved the developing of discovered but untouched regions into full production. This strategy also proved highly successful, as it helped the company to realize a production of about 14,000 oil barrels by the year 2010. Currently, the company is deeply involved in the C1-11, Lion Gas Pant, and Okoro projects located in Nigeria and Cote de Ivoire. In addition, it has also started rolling out plans aimed at bringing the principal Ebok region to full-scale production by the end of the year (Plunkett, 2008:413). The Ebok project is projected to hike the company’s daily production output to about 40,000 barrels of oil in a day. As a result, the conglomerate is currently enjoying the surging cash flow advantages from its increased output and sales. This has brought significant benefits, as the business has now been able to branch out from its previously British-based fiscal systems o the US-based systems, which consider cash flow levels more highly. This move has catapulted the drastic rise of the company’s s hare price up tenfold from the previous levels in January 2009 (Larry, 2012:374). Since its advent in 2004, the venture has realized substantial progress and growth over the last several years. In 2005, the company managed to acquire about 11 million pounds in operating cash. It did this through the selling off around 24.4 million of its ordinary shares. In the same year, it also entered