Nigeria’s Oil company, NNPC, has announced the exit of Sinopec’s Addax Petroleum Development (Nigeria) Ltd from its four major oil mining blocks in Nigeria and transferred them to the state-owned oil company.
“NNPC Ltd and Addax Petroleum Development (Nigeria) Ltd signed a Memorandum of Understanding on the Transfer, Settlement and Exit Agreement for Oil Mining Leases (OML) 123/124 and OMLs 126/137,” NNPC said on its official Twitter account.
Bala Wunti, the chief investment officer of NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services, Reuters reported, said “with this agreement, Addax has ceased to be the PSC contractor of the asset.”
NNPC did not provide details about the agreement.
Addax began operations in Nigeria in 1998 by signing Production Sharing Contracts (PSCs) with NNPC.
The oil leases were revoked in April 2021 by the petroleum regulator which accused Addax of failing to develop them sufficiently, but the decision was overturned by President Muhammadu Buhari three weeks later, Reuters reports.