ExxonMobil’s deal to secure
some oil blocks in Nigeria is under investigation by the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission, according to documents obtained by The Guardian of the
United Kingdom.
ExxonMobil, the world’s
largest oil company, was said to have secured the lucrative oil rights in 2009
by beating out China’s fourth-largest oil producer for access, despite
apparently underbidding its rival by $2.25bn.
The Guardian said a letter
addressed to an ExxonMobil’s subsidiary from the Federal Ministry of Petroleum
Resources showed the acceptance of a 2009 bid of $1.5bn for a 20-year lease on
the Oso, Ekpe, Edop and Ubit oil fields, which produce about 580,000 barrels
per day between them – close to a third of Nigeria’s crude oil production of
about 1.8 billion bpd, according to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting
Countries.
Sunrise Power &
Transmission, which was then a consortium of Nigerian and Chinese interests
that included the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation, bid $3.75bn for
the same rights, according to a letter from Sunrise to the President.
The deal was said to have
been reported to the Nigerian authorities by the Chairman of the Civil Society
Network Against Corruption, Lanre Suraju, who said he was passed documents
related to the deal by a “concerned citizen” after his June 2015 petition to
investigate the bid was made public. Suraju was the recipient of a letter dated
August 17, 2015 in which the authorities confirm they were investigating the
deal.
The Guardian said the documents
were given to it by the international watchdog group, Global Witness, which
said it had confirmed the investigation with the EFCC, adding that the
anti-graft agency said it could not comment on the existence of an
investigation, though Suraju said that as of last week, “the EFCC has
progressed impressively on the matter”.
It was said that an internal
memo signed by executives of the NNPC showed Exxon’s local subsidiary, Mobil
Producing Nigeria, originally tried to acquire a 25-year licence to receive billions
of dollars of oil for just $75m, saying they had expected the price for the
lease renewal to be “millions not billions.”
The three oil-mining leases,
renewed in 2009 at the end of a 40-year lease, are for shallow-water offshore
lots of oil-rich real estate labelled blocks 67, 68 and 70.
Credit: UK Guadian, The
Punch
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