$1.3bn oil deal: Italian, Dutch prosecutors probe Shell

The dirty underbelly of Nigeria’s oil industry came up for probe Wednesday in faraway Hague when Italian and Dutch prosecutors stormed Shell’s headquarters to investigate alleged corrupt oil deals. Industry sources have estimated the deal as running into several billions of naira.

 

Italian prosecutors are investigating Royal Dutch Shell over allegations of international corruption in relation to a big Nigeria oil deal that also involved rival Eni, a judicial source said on Wednesday.

 

Milan prosecutors opened a corruption probe into Eni in 2014 in a case relating to a $1.3 billion acquisition of Nigeria’s OPL-245 offshore oil block in 2011 by the Italian company and Shell.

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They later placed under investigation Eni’s Chief Executive Claudio Descalzi and another top manager at the company. The probe has now been widened to Shell, the source said, confirming a report in Corriere della Sera daily on Wednesday.

 

Eni has denied any wrongdoing in the case.

 

Royal Dutch Shell confirmed Wednesday that Dutch investigators recently visited its headquarters in the Hague in the Netherlands in relation to an investigation into a Nigerian offshore oil field.

 

“Representatives of the Dutch Financial Intelligence and Investigation Service and the Dutch Public Prosecutor recently visited Shell at its headquarters, ” a spokesman said.

 

“The visit was related to OPL 245, an offshore block in Nigeria that was the subject of a series of long-standing disputes with the Federal Government of Nigeria.”

 

Shell is cooperating with the authorities and is looking into the allegations, the spokesman said.

 

The OPL-245 block has been at the centre of a series of long-standing disputes.

It was initially awarded in 1998 by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company in which he was a shareholder.

The field was then sold in 2011 to Eni and Shell. According to documents from a British court, Malabu received $1.09 billion from the sale, while the rest went to the Nigerian government.

The oil block is estimated to contain 9 billion barrels of crude oil.

 

 

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