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The Nigerian government, yesterday, asked a Milan court in Italy to compel oil multinationals, Royal Dutch Shell and ENI to make an upfront payment of $1.092 billion for damages it suffered over Oil Prospective Licence (OPL) 245 oil block.
At a hearing into alleged corruption linked to Eni and Shell’s 2011 acquisition of the OPL 245 field, Lucio Lucia, lawyer for the Federal Government, called for a guilty verdict and an advance payment, ahead of any broader damages package set by a court at a later date.
Lucia did not specify how much Nigeria was seeking in damages overall, but said the disputed deal had deprived the country of oil profits. The calculated profits under two different scenarios, according to Lucia, “amounted to $4.5 billion and $5.9 billion respectively.”
The long-running bribery case revolves around the purchase of the OPL 245 offshore field for about $1.3 billion from Malabu, a company owned by former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.
Prosecutors on behalf of Nigeria alleged that about $1.1 billion of that money was siphoned off to politicians and middlemen, while Shell said the 2011 agreement was a settlement of long-standing litigation after the previous allocation of the block by the Federal Government to Shell and Malabu.
Etete, Eni, Shell and the managers accused in the Milan court case, including Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi, have all denied any wrongdoing.
