HeadlineMore Trouble For Shell Nigeria As Federal Court Blocks Bank Accounts Over...

More Trouble For Shell Nigeria As Federal Court Blocks Bank Accounts Over Alleged Crude Theft Scandal

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BEVERLY HILLS, February 16, (THEWILL) – In what appears to be a major blow to the operations of Shell Petroleum Development Company Nigeria, SPDC and affiliates of the Royal Dutch Shell company operating in the country, a Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos State has granted an interim Mareva injunction directing commercial banks to block Shell accounts in a bid to recover the cash value of more than 16 million barrels of crude allegedly diverted by the oil giant from the indigenous oil company, AITEO.

Justice Oluremi Omowunmi Oguntoyibo while giving the order in suit no FHC/L/CS/52/2021, directed the 20 banks where the Shell companies operate accounts in Nigeria to “ring-fence any cash, bonds, deposits, all forms of negotiable instruments to the value of $2.7 billion and pay all standing credits to the Shell companies up to the value into an interest yielding account in the name of the Chief Registrar of the court, who is to hold the funds in trust” pending the hearing of the motion and determination of the motion on notice for interlocutory injunction filed before it by AITEO.

AITEO, alongside some other indigenous oil producers, have had a protracted dispute with Shell alleging that the company shortchanges them using the unapproved methodology to calculate the volume of crude it lifts on their behalf from the terminal. They jointly allege that Shell deploys underhand practices including using unapproved meters to facilitate crude theft.

THEWILL had previously reported exclusively that following an investigation into the dispute by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Shell in a letter to the agency, admitted that it had indeed installed unapproved metering systems and agreed to refund more than 2 million barrels of crude it had illegally taken from the producers (Belema Oil, AITEO, Eroton and NewCross) between 2016 and 2018.

ALSO READ: EXCLUSIVE: Big Oil in Crude Theft Scandal: Shell Nigeria Busted

However, in this lawsuit, AITEO is claiming a loss of over 16 million barrels of crude to Shell from oil injected into the Bonny Terminal since March 2015 when it acquired OML 29 from SPDC.

Since our exclusive report on the DPR’s indictment and sanction of Shell, the company has been under intense pressure to manage the scandal in the public domain with its lawyers unsuccessfully pleading with Justice Oguntoyinbo to issue an order barring the media from covering and reporting events in court relating to the lawsuit.

Nigeria is estimated to have lost billions of dollars to crude theft with the bleeding continuing unabated till date.

mareva orders (1)Statement of Claim (1)

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