50,000 barrels a day of oil, more than 100 reactivated wells, and now low-Earth-orbit satellite internet across remote Niger Delta sites. The OML 17 oilfield in Rivers State, Nigeria has gained one of the more unusual upgrades on an African upstream asset.
Heirs Energies, the Lagos-headquartered indigenous Nigerian operator of OML 17, said it has deployed Starlink connectivity across its remote sites, enabling real-time monitoring and Internet of Things (IoT) integration at locations that previously lacked stable industrial bandwidth. The company announced the rollout ahead of its Gold Sponsorship at African Energy Week 2026 in Cape Town, South Africa.
OML 17 in numbers
OML 17 is a 1,300 km² onshore licence Heirs Energies has operated since 2021. The company has more than doubled production at the asset since then, lifting oil output to over 50,000 barrels per day and gas to 120-135 million standard cubic feet per day. Its Brownfield Excellence programme has reactivated more than 100 dormant wells, with uptime sustained above 85%.
A separate joint venture between Heirs Energies and the Nigerian National Petroleum Company is targeting capture of approximately 180 million standard cubic feet per day of flare gas from OML 17, with five private offtakers signed and commissioning expected in Q3 2026. The initiative falls under Nigeria’s Decade of Gas policy.
Capital structure
In December 2025, Heirs Energies secured a $750 million dual-tranche reverse-based lending facility from the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), supporting OML 17 development and a medium-term ambition to scale toward 100,000 barrels per day. The facility partly financed an equity move on 31 December 2025 in which Heirs Energies acquired a 20.7% stake in Seplat Energy for approximately $496 million, becoming the listed operator’s largest shareholder.
An indigenous footprint in digital oil
The Starlink deployment positions Heirs Energies inside a wider trend of African oil-and-gas operators using satellite connectivity to digitalise upstream assets. ExxonMobil has deployed autonomous drones for inspection in Angola’s Block 15, and TotalEnergies is using AI-enabled seismic processing in Blocks 17 and 32. The Heirs Energies rollout brings comparable capabilities to indigenous Nigerian operations, rather than only to international majors.
“Heirs Energies exemplifies the rise of indigenous African operators scaling responsibly and profitably,” said NJ Ayuk, executive chairman of the African Energy Chamber, which is hosting Heirs Energies as a Gold Sponsor of AEW 2026. The conference takes place from 12 to 16 October 2026 in Cape Town, including a new AI and Data Center Track aimed at framing data infrastructure within Africa’s wider energy transition.
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