Posted on 01/28/2016 3:43:27 PM PST by bananaman22
Supermajors Shell and Italian Eni could be facing the loss of one of the biggest offshore oil exploration blocks in Nigeria, putting an estimated 9 billion barrels of crude oil at risk.
As the new Nigerian government launches a rampaging anticorruption campaign, local media are reporting government recommendations to reclaim block OPL 245 from oil giants Shell and Eni.
Nigerian Justice Minister and Attorney General Abubakar Malami is behind the recommendation, and is a key figure advising the government on the case.
At issue is how Shell and Eni landed the block in the first place—a controversial deal that is now being investigated in the UK, Italy and Nigeria.
(Excerpt) Read more at oilprice.com ...
Uh oh, this thread might get pulled for “crude” language!
Just ignore any emails that want you to help with a wire transfer of 9 billion barrels of oil.
From:Mohammed Abacha Lagos-Nigeria Tel: 234-80-34069502
Dear Sir/Madam
This letter is not intended to to cause any embarrassment but just to contact your esteem self-following the knowledge of your high repute and trustworthiness.
I am Mohammed Abacha,the son of the late Nigerian Head of State who died on the 8th of June 1998.If you are conversant with world news,you would understand better,while I got your contacts through my personal research.Please,I need your assistance to make this happen and please; do not undermine it because it will also be a source of upliftment to you also.You have absolutely nothing to loose in assisting us instead, you have so much to gain.
The then head of state General Sani Abacha,transferred the crude oil through a Lebanese businessman,Chagoury and a Jewish business man,Mark Rissar to storage facilities overseas,Instead,he used PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION NUMBERS (PIN) and declared the contents as coconut oil and palm fronds. Also the firm issued him with a certificate of deposit of the consignments crude, which I have these information in my custody now.
You must have heard over the media reports and the Internet on the recovery of various huge sums of oil deposited by my late father in different refineries and oil companies abroad. Some of these oil companies and storage facilities willingly gave-/divulge their oil secrets and disclosed to the present civilian administration of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo,about my family’s crude oil lodgement and monetary transactions with them.
Please my dear,I repose great confidence in you and I hope you will not betray my confidence in you.I have secretly deposited the amount of 30,000,000 bbls with a oil tanker abroad whose name is withheld for now until we open communications.The oil is contained in a tanker ship consignment with Security Deposit Number 009GM.
I shall be grateful if you could receive this oil into your country for safekeeping. This arrangement is known to you and my junior brother (Abbas) only. So I will deal directly with you.I am proposing a 20% share of the oil to you for your kind assistance.I shall provide for you all the documents of the oil deposit with the security firm, and raise a power of attorney to enable you claim and receive this oil into your bank account.I have done a thorough homework and fine-tuned the best way to create you as the beneficiary to the crude oil and effect the transfer accordingly.Is rest assured that the modalities I have resolved to finalize the entire project guarantees our safety and the successful transfer of the oil.So, you will be absolutely right when you say that this project is risk free and viable.If you are capable and willing to assist, contact me at once via email with following details:
1. YOUR NAME
2. POSTAL ADDRESS
3. PHONE AND FAX NUMBERS
Also this transaction demands absolute confidentiality.On no condition must you disclose it to anybody irrespective of your relation with the person.Remember,Loose lips sinks ship.I am looking forward to your urgent and positive response via my email address above.
Best Regards,
Mohammed Abacha.
This is shaping up to be a very viscous fight.
I don’t need any more oil... I got plenty.
You see, I was out one mornin, just shootin at some food,
when up from the ground came a bubblin crude!
Oil, that is.
Black gold.
Texas tea.
At risk of what?
That some warlord might come in and steal away with it under cover of darkness?
Yes, the viscosity is high with this one.
Actually, this is an important post. Another side to this in a bigger picture of things, various governments, typically far leftist, socialist or communist, in South America but even more so in Africa, are heavily dependent on oil upstream and crude for the GDP of their state and their precarious hold on power, which funds their own power strangleholds and Kleptocracy, now with the plunge in the price per barrel in authoritarian nations which are often sharpely divided with different sects of regional, clan, tribal or political and religious tensions and poverty which at any moment could actually break out into civil war and often have already had a history of such.
We are the left in retreat, or ready to topple.
I know Nigerians, and have an understanding of their situation. But I want to briefly zero in on Angola to highlight the impact.
The current communist Soviet era influenced government, whose “President” has been running things there since the 1970s and is still alive, who was given support by the Castro military to prop it up of which Fidel’s military used chemical and biological weapons to mass murder, came into power in the midst of civil war. It is oil that has maintained it’s precarious hold on power, the underlayer of the other factions despite losing the civil war are still there in Angola and ready to rise again on the first opportunity.
The current central government, really no longer a communist government but a leftist one party state full of corruption and authoritarian that is more a kleptocracy than a communist dictatorship, is, in my opinion, hanging onto the edge by it’s fingernails with the decline in oil price. It’s powerbase, for what it is, is West and towards the coast.
But up North is Cabinda, a totally different genre, they fought for their own independence from greater Angola during the civil war times and Cabinda is the region of most of the vast oil reserves.
From the Middle of Angola and expanding East and North-East is a vast terroritory of peoples who supported a pro-Western charismatic generalisimo who was killed in combat. This area also has an expansive “Bible belt” of Angolan Christian sects, some of the indigenous Angelic or prophetic genre, which gave support to the anti-communist faction, both reside in the rich gold regions of the East.
The current government has it’s grips on the oil rich West, but I am predicting soon, soon we will see civil war in Angola and likely the fall of the current regime. This isn’t just some faraway place - Angola actually can easily outstrip Nigeria in both oil and gold. And I think from this heartland along the Congo there will be both great violence, but also a force that will oppose Radical Islam that will be in position to be much more powerful than the world imagines.
But there is also ebola, waiting all along the great Congo River. These will be times not long forgotten.
For a good time, dial 419-Nigeria
Has China not yet bought this?
Angola needs $90 oil to meet their government spending.
Nigeria needs $120
Venezuela needs $125
These countries don’t have 5 years of cash reserves like Saudi Arabia.
You’re hearing talk of the Saudi’s selling some equity in ARAMCO, or part of it.
Why would anyone invest in company that’s already been nationalized once?
To be fair, when Saudi took over Aramco, they paid decently for the ownership in dollars.
That said, I wouldn’t trust investing in Saudi Aramco.
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