The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPCL), has signed Transfer, Settlement and Exit Agreement with Addax Petroleum Company.
The NNPC Ltd Chief Finance Officer, signed the agreement on behalf of the NNPC, while the Addax MD signed for his company.
The Group Chief Executive Officer, Mallam Mele Kyari, attended the agreement signing virtually.
The Executive Vice President, Upstream, NNPC Limited, Adokiye Tombomieye; the Chief Upstream Investment Officer of the NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services, Bala Wunti; the Chief Finance Officer of NNPC, Umar Ajiya; the Executive Commissioner, Development and Production, Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission, Dr Habib Nuhu; and the Managing Director, Addax Petroleum, Yonghong Chen, attended the event physically.
Speaking during the agreement signing in Abuja on Tuesday, Kyari said the deal would boost the production of crude oil production from the assets for the benefit of Nigeria.
The Department of Petroleum Resources, which is now NUPRC, had on April 7 last year, revoked the four Oil Mining Licences belonging to Addax Petroleum.
The then Director/Chief Executive Officer, DPR, Sarki Auwalu, had said it discovered that over 50 per cent of the assets had remained underdeveloped, and had led to the loss of revenue by the Federal Government.
But a few days after the revocation by the DPR, President Muhammadu Buhari, reversed the revocation and gave approval for the restoration of the leases on the four Oil Mining Licences to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd
The oil licences affected are OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137.
The President had also directed the then DPR to retract the letter of revocation of the leases.
He had also directed the NNPC to utilise the contractual provisions to resolve issues, in line with the extant provisions of the Production Sharing Contract arrangement between NNPC and Addax.
