Shell is selling the business that pipes natural gas to more than 130 factories and commercial users in Ogun, Abia and Rivers states, ending its 25-year role in supplying gas directly to Nigerian industry.
Shell Petroleum B.V. said on Tuesday that it had agreed to sell all of Shell Nigeria Gas Group to Vaaris Energy Limited, a Nigerian company. The price was not disclosed. The deal still needs regulatory approval.
Shell Nigeria Gas, set up in 1998, runs about 170 km of pipelines. Manufacturers use the gas in place of diesel to run boilers, furnaces and generators. The company does not produce gas, export it or trade it abroad; it only distributes it inside Nigeria.
Shell said the business would carry on as usual until the sale closes. It did not say whether gas prices or supply contracts would change under the new owner.
“Shell continues to focus on strategic Deepwater and Integrated Gas positions in Nigeria,” said Elohor Aiboni, Shell’s country chair.
Shell stays in Nigeria, but further offshore
The sale is Shell’s latest step away from onshore and domestic business In March 2025, it completed the sale of its onshore oil subsidiary, SPDC, to the Renaissance Africa Energy consortium.
In November 2025, it raised its stake in the offshore Bonga oilfield from 55% to 65%. It keeps a 25.6% stake in Nigeria LNG, the country’s gas export plant.
It has approved the HI offshore gas project, which is expected to supply up to 350 million cubic feet of gas a day to Nigeria LNG.
Under chief executive Wael Sawan, Shell has been cutting smaller businesses to focus on assets with higher returns.
Who is Vaaris?
Vaaris has existed for less than a year. A company in the group, Vaaris Resources JV Co Limited, was registered on 22 December 2025.
In January 2026, Vaaris agreed to buy TotalEnergies’ 10% stake in the Renaissance joint venture, the former Shell onshore licences, for an undisclosed sum.
It is led by Austin Avuru, former chief executive of Seplat Energy, who told Bloomberg he had “assembled a group of investors”. He did not name them.
The TotalEnergies deal was still awaiting approval from the upstream regulator, NUPRC, in August. The anti-corruption group HEDA asked NUPRC to set out first how pollution clean-up and decommissioning costs would be split. HEDA said Vaaris had published no accounts or operating record.
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