…25 years after, Tinubu determined to restore OPL 245 to boost oil output
….Former AGF Adoke seeks political exoneration
By Empowered Newswire
In a determined bid to ramp up Nigeria’s oil production output and for the first time in 25 years, the Federal Government is now ready to benefit from what is considered one of the juiciest oil blocks in Africa, the controversial OPL 245, Empowered Newswire reports.
The oil bloc is estimated to hold over 9 billion barrels of crude oil, nearly a quarter of the nation’s total proven oil reserves.
Authoritative sources say the Tinubu Administration is open to releasing the oil bloc to prospective developers including local and foreign investors.
Specifically Empowered Newswire has learnt that Shell, with headquarters in Netherlands and ENI, an Italian energy firm who have both been involved in previous attempts to develop the oil field are favoured to get President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s nod.
In fact, a subsequent issuance of an Oil Mining License, OML may be issued to
the two International Oil Companies, both of whom have been collaborating on the controversial oil block and the scandal-ridden Oil Prospecting Licence, OPL.
Already, the April 29, 1998 controversial license to Malabu Oil & Gas Limited has now expired over two years ago and both SHELL and ENI- the Dutch and Italian IOCs who have been involved in the oil block deals have indicated willingness to proceed to further development of the bloc, if the Tinubu Presidency grants its ok.
But a statement from ENI says to further develop oil bloc, investments running into billions would still have to be made by whoever gets the mining license.
An Aso Villa source confirmed that the President is keen to explore the Oil bloc especially considering its huge reserves at a time that Nigeria’s oil output is struggling to meet its OPEC quotas. At the last count in June this year OPEC have had to reduce Nigeria’s future quota by over 20% from 1.74 mb/d to 1.38. This new quota will become effective next January if Nigeria’s output remains low.
Already the Federal Government has decided to end the legal cases abroad on the contention around the ownership of the oil bloc.
However the former Attorney-General Mohammed Adoke, SAN, who was the country’s Chief Law Officer when an agreement was signed for Nigeria to be paid $1.1B for the OPL 245 is still facing prosecution in Nigeria on various allegations, including fraud and money laundering.
But inside sources say no conclusive evidence has been found to prove the allegations against Adoke, on which grounds the former AGF is seeking an exoneration with the emergence of a new administration. The case against Adoke was brought by the EFCC, where the case files are still open.
But investigators say certain properties were traced to Adoke suspected to have been bought with proceeds of the bribes drawn from the settlement of the case.
However Adoke was said to have shown proof that the property was purchased through a bank loan.
Adoke also argued that he got then President Goodluck Jonathan’s approval for the agreement which saw the $1.1B settlement money moved from Nigeria’s JP Morgan account in New York
to two Nigerian banks, where the money was allegedly shared to individuals, according to investigation documents seen by Empowered Newswire. Specifically it is believed that $800m was paid to Malabu out of the over $1B settlement. Nigeria got only about $200m.
Several local and international court cases were instituted since the OPL 245 was questionably awarded on April 29, 1998 to Malabu Oil & Gas, RC 334442, owned by then Petroleum Resources Minister Dan Etete and members of the Late General Sani Abacha, when he was head of State.
Meanwhile, authoritative sources also confirmed that the FG is in fact aware that Malabu Oil & Gas, owned by former Petroleum Resources Minister Dan Etete and members of the Late General Sani Abacha never paid up the signature bonus of $20m it was obliged to pay within 30 days of the license grant.
Sources said Malabu initially only paid $2.04m on May 15 1999. The legal opinion according to senior lawyers in the Tinubu Administration is that in actual fact “Malabu never earned a legal title to OPL 245.”
In 2019 President Muhammadu Buhari rejected a request from ENI seeking to convert the OPL into a mining license. In the circumstances, authoritative sources say President Tinubu is much more favourably disposed to granting the request now.more favourably disposed to granting the request now.