Bankole, House of Reps Speaker Photo: Sun News Publishing

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House of Representatives probing activities of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and its subsidiaries on Monday said that it had confirmed the existence of a cartel that had cornered all juicy oil blocks in the country.

Determined to expose the faces behing the cartel, Co-chairman of the ad-committee, Hon Igo Aguma, has asked the Department of Petroleum Resources [DPR) to furnish the committee details of directors and promoters of all the companies that won the bid bewteen 2005 and 2007.
Raising the alarm, he said that names of certain characters featured in all the companies promoted by the cartel and won the bid under same conditions that others failed.

For instance, he said that the committee in the cause of gathering information discovered that companies not owned, or promoted by the cartel were disqualified, based on the same yardstick employed for all applicants.

Tony Chukwueke, the Director of Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), who is serving an indefinite suspension, made matter worse for the committee to unmask the faces behind the cartel.
He took the ad-hoc committee on a circuitous journey of who were promoters and owners of the companies that eventually emerged as winners of all the oil blocs that were shared by the DPR.
He told the committee that the Ministry of Petroleum did the final selection of 45 companies that eventually won the 2005 bid from a total of 369 companies that applied for oil license.
Confused by conflicting accounts of companies that won juicy oil blocks in 2005 alone, the committee was left with no choice than to compel him to furnish the committee with details of particulars of the beneficiaries of the bid.

According to him, all the companies supplied their promoters and directors, which were forwarded to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources for final selection.
Chukwueke further told the committee that it was at the discretion of the Ministry that the companies were merged and pruned down to 45, which implied that all the companies got an oil block at least.
“We submitted the list of qualifiers to the Ministry according to our template. The ministry decided to merge some companies. The list was what we published as bidders.
“Because of the merger, we decided that it is better to set conditions for registration because not all the bidders are now being considered,” he explained.

Chukwueke added that all the merged companies were married to a local content operator, noting that there was no way DPR could query the rationale used by its supervising ministry.
Given instances of how the merger came about, he said that three companies owned by Dangote Oil and Gas, Radiant Oil and Gas and Corporate Oil and Gas decided to merge as ASK Oil and Gas to bid for an OPL.

The second example he gave was a company called Seven Energy made up of Birma Energy limited, Nest Oil and Gas, Waco Oil and Gas, Japaul Martime Services, Fraiscent Oil and Gas and Blue Century International Limited.

He however admitted that DPR did not go to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) to conduct a due diligence search on who floated the companies and their pedigree.
The committee therefore asked DPR to furnish it with details of all the companies that won oil blocs between 2005 and 2007, in whatever names; a schedule of their promoters, directors, tax receipts, their corporate headquarters among other details.

DPR was also to provide details of Local contents vehicles of all the winners of the oil blocs to ascertain the level of their compliance with the policy of local contents in the nation’s oil and gas industry.