Nigeria Government Set to Recover $1.91bn From Shell, Exxon Mobil Oil Companies

The Nigerian government is set to recover $1.91 billion outstanding payments from Shell and Exxon Mobil, two multinational oil companies, in respect of Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) for the Bonga and Erha oilfields, in the Niger Delta, which deep-offshore oil fields account for 20 percent of the nation’s oil production.

The debt recovery was recommended by a committee, chaired by President Umaru Yar’Adua’s Special Adviser on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Emmanuel Egbogah, set up to determine that the country received all its share of money accruing from the PSC partnership.

President Yar’Adua asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the nation’s oil company, to take immediate steps to recover the outstanding payments, said a statement release here Tuesday by Mr. Olusegun Adeniyi, Special Adviser to the President on communications.

The president said “the total sum of $1.496 billion owed to NNPC based on the proper application of the PSC’s Capital Allowance should be recovered. This sum is made up of $850 million from Bonga and $646.3 million from Erha The sum of $414.6 million owed to NNPC and to the government from Bonga gas sales and as tax revenue from the gas sales should be recovered; and that all future government gas sales agreements should account for Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) to ensure that the government derives maximum economic benefits from them and that this position be adopted in the renegotiation of all existing PSC agreements which are due for renegotiation”.

The Federal Inland Revenue Service was also ordered to pursue the company income tax payments due from Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company and Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited on the operation of the Bonga and Erha oilfields.

Source African Press Agency

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