Breaking News: Oil firms face $3.5bn claim for damages

Breaking News: Nigeria could seek as much as $3.5 billion in damages from Oil firms – Royal Dutch Shell and Eni over an allegedly corrupt deal for one of Africa’s biggest untapped oilfields.

The Federal Republic of Nigeria has filed a claim in the High Court in London against the two Oil firms over the deal in which they acquired the OPL 245 oil licence for $1.3 billion. It alleges that the deal was corrupt and resulted in Nigeria receiving “no or negligible value” for rights to the “extremely valuable” offshore licence, which it estimates was, in fact, worth “at least $3.5 billion”.

Of the $1.3 billion that was paid by the Oil firms, Nigeria says it ended up receiving about $200 million, with up to $1.1 billion being swiftly transferred on to other…

Nigeria’s NNPC has had cash-flow problems for years and has been chronically behind payments for its stakes in upstream joint-ventures with Shell, Chevron, Total, Eni and ExxonMobil.

After project development began to stall following the collapse in oil prices, Oil Minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu reached a deal last year with its major foreign oil-producers to repay $5.1 billion over five years, interest free.

NNPC has already leveraged over 300,000 barrels per day of crude to cover current fuel imports via a crude-for-product swap scheme as well as debts to traders dating back nearly a decade.

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