Investigations into shady activities in the nation’s oil sector, reveals that President Muhammadu Buhari has made a u-turn, and revoked OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137 back to Addax Petroleum Development Nigeria Limited.
The licences which were revoked from Addax, were awarded to Kaztec Engineering Limited/Salvic Petroleum Resources Limited, owned by Oil Magnate, Sir Emeka Offor, who is a close ally of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, Buhari’s nephew, Mamman Daura and the Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, Auwalu Sarki.
It was gathered that the decision to hurriedly sell the OMLs was conveyed in a letter signed by the Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR within three days over the Easter period.
“Kaztec belongs to Emeka Offor; the Minister, Auwalu Sarki and Mamman Daura are all involved in the illegal deal. So also in the marginal field, Emeka Offor used three different names to get a lucrative field. He used Naphatha Petechemical’s name to get 91 per cent of Abiala filed, Starcrest to get 41.64 per cent of Atamba field and Naphtha to get 11 per cent of Egbolom field.
“Addax owes the Federal Government over $1.4 billion in tax and they have been in court cases since the minister decided to cancel and give it free to Emeka Offor.
“Offor is a close ally of the minister and he sponsored Sarki. Sarki was an Assistant Director and got promoted to director when the late Chief of Staff was outside the country,” a top presidential source had told SaharaReporters.
Confirming this in a statement on Friday, Presidential Spokesman, Garba Shehu, said Buhari had directed the DPR to retract the letter of revocation of the leases to Kaztec Engineering Limited/Salvic Petroleum Resources Limited.
“In line with the current administration’s commitment to the rule of law, fairness and enabling a stable business climate for investment, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the restoration of the leases on OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137 to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, which is in production sharing contract with Addax Petroleum, a company wholly owned by Government of the People’s Republic of China on the blocks. The leases belonging to the Federation were revoked on March 30, 2021,
“This development reaffirms the commitment of President Buhari to the rule of law and sanctity of contracts.
“While directing the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR to retract the letter of revocation of the leases, the President also directed NNPC to utilise contractual provisions to resolve issues in line with the extant provisions of the Production Sharing Contract arrangement between NNPC and Addax.
“The restoration of the blocks to NNPC will boost the organisation’s portfolio, thereby making the Corporation to, in the long run, boost its crude oil production and in turn increase the revenue it generates to the Federation Account,” the statement by the spokesman read.
