Senate Probes Shell Over Joint Venture Breach, Seeks $200m Refund To FG

The Senate has constituted an Ad-Hoc Committee to investigate Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) over non-compliance with the Petroleum Act and breach of the Joint Venture Agreement entered into with the Federal Government.

The Ad-Hoc committee has been mandated to probe the Oil Mining Lease granted to SPDC between 1959 to 1989, and 1989 to 2019 under the SPDC/NNPC Joint Venture agreement.

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Accordingly, the Upper chamber is demanding a refund of $200 million to the federal government of what was paid by SPDC, including penalties and interests under the said lease agreements.

The Upper Chamber agreed on these resolutions on Thursday after it considered a motion sponsored by Senator George Sekibo.

Senator Sekibo, in his motion says that the SPDC/NNPC Joint Venture (JV) agreement, in contravention of the provisions of the Petroleum Act 1969, by the defunct Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, granted to the SPDC/NNPC a 30-year Oil Mining Lease from 1959 to 1989.

He observed that doing so constitutes an illegal extension of the oil mining Lease by 10 years in the first instance, instead of the prescribed term of 20 year and led to the Federal government losing revenue from fees, taxes, rents and royalties.