Nigeria’s Budget Minister, Udoma Udo Udoma, has said the government will reduce its stake in Joint Ventures, JV, to 40 percent this year.

According to him, the move was to boost revenue.

International oil companies such as Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil are in JV agreement with Nigeria through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

NNPC owns 55 percent stake in its joint venture with Shell and 60 percent stakes with other joint venture companies.

According to Udoma, the government will now speed up its efforts to improve its finances including the “immediate commencement of the restructuring of the joint venture oil assets so as to reduce government shareholding to 40 percent,” he said in a statement.

The debt office in 2017, had announced the government’s plan to raise 710 billion naira ($2.32 billion) through restructuring its equity in joint venture oil assets, which it said proposal had been reflected in the 2018 budget.