Shell Petroleum denies $1.3bn onshore asset sale in Nigeria

Claims that the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDCC) sold the Renaissance Consortium about $1.3 billion in onshore oil assets have been refuted.

In an affidavit submitted on May 24, 2024, Mr. Kingsley Osuh, a member of SPDC’s legal team at Global Litigation (Sub-Saharan Africa), revealed this information. The suit’s file number is FHC/ABJ/CS/413/2024.

“It did not sell its onshore assets and facilities in Nigeria to anyone,” the company claimed.

In response to a lawsuit filed by Global Gas and Refining Limited against it and the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) as first and second respondents, SPDC has filed a counterapplication.

Suing for an injunction prohibiting NUPRC from “approving, authorizing, consenting to or otherwise granting the permission for the sale/divestment of the assets of the (SPDC) 1st Respondent,” Global Gas and Refining Limited’s legal team has been in court in the meantime.

In his deposition before the court, the Executive Chairman of the company, Mr. Kenneth Yelowe, stated that his company, Global Gas, had initiated arbitral proceedings against Shell on the grounds that it had not received wet gas from Shell in accordance with the terms of a Gas Processing Agreement dated March 15, 2002.

Yelowe threatened to back out of its 2002 business arrangement with Shell unless the court granted an order temporarily preventing the “assets” in question from being sold, according to a statement made by his attorney, Patrick Ikweato, SAN.

However, Osuh informed the court in a counteraffidavit submitted to SPDC that the issue between his company and Globus Gas is currently pending a decision from the Supreme Court.

“The first respondent is the operator of an unincorporated joint venture with Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Total Energies EP Nigeria Limited, and Nigerian Agip Oil Company. The share sale transaction did not and will not affect the first respondent’s thirty percent participating interest in the eighteen (18) Oil Mining Leases (“OML”) that are currently part of the first respondent’s joint venture.

According to Osuh, “neither the first respondent’s assets nor its continued corporate existence as a Nigerian registered company are affected by the sale of the shareholder’s shares.”

Remember when Shell and Renaissance Consortium reached an agreement in January of last year to sell SPDC, the company’s onshore subsidiary, for up to $2.4 billion?