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Thursday, July 25, 2013
Shell and ENI are under investigation in the UK over a money laundering allegation in Nigeria. The police in the UK are investigating a $1.3 billion deal for an offshore block after allegations were made that the majority of the cash spent on the block, OPL 245, ended up in a company linked to former Nigerian oil minister, Dan Etete.
The ownership of OPL 245 has been in dispute for over a decade.
A UK spokesman told Reuters a crime unit is investigating a money-laundering allegation in connection with OPL 245 and that the investigation was at an early stage.
The investigation was launched when transparency campaigners asked the UK to look into the deal. The group said that the two major E&P firms used the Nigerian government as a go-between to obscure the fact that they were dealing with Etete.
Etete had a money laundering conviction in France during 2007 related to bribes he was alleged to have taken when in government. In 1998 Etete awarded OPL 245 for a payment of just $2 million to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company in which he played a prominent role.
A Shell spokesman told Reuters it had purchased the block from the government, making no payment to Malabu, and that it acted transparently and in accordance with Nigerian law.
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