Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has reversed the revocation of four Oil Mining Licences (OML) by the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) and restored their leases to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Buhari’s action, which was made known on Friday in a statement by his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, titled ‘President Buhari restores ownership of OML 123, others to NNPC’, affected OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137.
The DPR had revoked the licences belonging to the federation on March 30, 2021.
Shehu disclosed that Buhari had directed the DPR to retract the letter of revocation of the leases while directing the NNPC to utilise contractual provisions to resolve issues in line with the extant provisions of the Production Sharing Contract arrangement between the corporation and Addax, a Chinese firm.
“In line with the current administration’s commitment to the rule of law, fairness and enabling a stable business climate for investment, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the restoration of the leases on OMLs 123, 124, 126 and 137 to the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, which is in production sharing contract with Addax Petroleum, a company wholly owned by Government of the People’s Republic of China on the blocks. The leases belonging to the Federation were revoked on March 30, 2021.
“This development reaffirms the commitment of President Buhari to the rule of law and sanctity of contracts.
“While directing the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR to retract the letter of revocation of the leases, the President also directed NNPC to utilise contractual provisions to resolve issues in line with the extant provisions of the Production Sharing Contract arrangement between NNPC and Addax.
“The restoration of the blocks to NNPC will boost the organisation’s portfolio, thereby making the Corporation to, in the long run, boost its crude oil production and in turn increase the revenue it generates to the Federation Account,” the statement read.
