President Muhammadu Buhari has ordered the Department of Petroleum Resources to restore four oil mining licences revoked from Addax Petroleum.
The was disclosed in a statement by the president’s aide, Garba Shehu, on Friday.
Addax, owned by the Chinese state-run Sinopec, has a production sharing contract with the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation.
The Nigerian government, through the DPR, had revoked the four OMLs, citing the company’s inability to comply with targets.
Two weeks ago, a committee set by Mr Buhari to investigate Addax submitted a report, accusing the petroleum company of “economic waste.”
The committee led by a former senator, Magnus Abe, said $1 billion had been invested in the contract but Addax Petroleum called it off over an issue that was totally unrelated to the project. The action put over 3000 Nigerians out of work, the committee said.
The DPR on Thursday inaugurated a team to evaluate the revoked assets of Addax Petroleum Exploration Nigeria Ltd.
“DPR had recently revoked the four assets of Addax Petroleum Exploration Nigeria Ltd., namely OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137 due to the non-development of the assets by the company,” the statement issued by the agency’s spokesperson, Paul Osu, said.
Mr Auwalu said team of experts will evaluate the current status (As-is) of the revoked assets, including liabilities post revocation, in order to facilitate takeover of the assets by the new operators- Kaztech/Slavic Consortium.