Illegal Oil Exports: Nigeria Loses Case Against Agip, Petrobras

A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has dismissed claims by the Nigerian government’s that local units of Eni SpA and Petroleo Brasileiro SA illegally exported crude oil to the U.S.

Justice Mojisola Olatoregun said Wednesday in Lagos, that the government could not provide evidence to back its lawsuit against Agip, a subsidiary of Eni, and Petrobras’s Brasoil.
President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration sued the companies as well as the local arms of Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA in 2016, claiming they failed to declare or under-declared 57 million barrels of oil shipped to U.S. ports between 2011 and 2014, according to court documents.
The cases against Chevron, Shell and Total are ongoing. They’ve denied any wrongdoing.
In 2016, the federal government has filed a legal suit against some local units of international oil companies in the country to recover almost $12 billion dollars in what the government termed missing crude oil revenue.
The government had accused the oil companies of short-changing it by allegedly shipping several barrels of crude oil out of Nigeria, without making due remittance to the government.