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.
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