President Bola Tinubu has directed the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, and other government agencies to resolve all court cases related to the $1.3bn deepwater OPL 245 oil block in the southern Niger Delta. Parties involved are reportedly negotiating to end the 28-year-long crisis within the next month.<\/p>\n
The OPL 245 saga involves complex allegations of corruption, fraud, and legal disputes. Malabu Oil and Gas initially acquired the block in 1998, with Shell and Eni acquiring it in 2011 for $1.3bn. Litigations ensued, with allegations of bribery and corruption, leading to legal actions against Eni, Shell, and Malabu.<\/p>\n
Lokpobiri revealed that the government is pursuing negotiations to end the prolonged legal battles. He emphasized the economic potential of the oil block, stating that its development is crucial for Nigeria’s economy. The Attorney-General of the Federation is leading the delegation, involving the NUPRC, EFCC, NNPC, and the Minister of State for Petroleum.<\/p>\n
Lokpobiri highlighted the transparent process and the government’s interest in attracting investments to benefit Nigerians. He stressed the urgency of resolving the case, as the world shifts away from fossil fuels. If the investments are not secured now, attracting capital for the block’s development in the future would be challenging.<\/p>\n
The Malabu OPL 245 case has seen international investigations, with outcomes in 2018, 2020, 2021, and 2022, including closure of investigations and acquittals. The current move by the Nigerian government signals a potential end to further litigation, allowing the development of the block to proceed. The case underscores the complexities of corruption in the extractive industries and the challenges of navigating international legal battles across multiple jurisdictions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Bola Tinubu has directed the Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Heineken Lokpobiri, and other government agencies to resolve all court cases related to the $1.3bn deepwater OPL 245 oil block in the southern Niger Delta. Parties involved are reportedly negotiating to end the 28-year-long crisis within the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":17672,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17766"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17766\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17810,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17766\/revisions\/17810"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}