Confronting China on Nigerian Crude oil (I)

By Sampson Iroabuchi Onwuka

People Republic of China will be sending their official delegates to Nigeria to close a deal about the much proposed three Crude oil Refineries. One of the proposed Crude oil Refineries in Nigeria will be built in Lagos LFTZ, Lekki Free Trade Zone, under the auspices of NNPC and Engineering Director, Billy Agha. But the news is not surprising since Nigeria will auction of Crude oil blocks come August. The act coincides with supplementary amendment of Nigerian budget and the implied deficit for 2010 given the argued drop in revenue. China is expected to play a pivotal role in the auction of these Crude oil blocks and not only that, China will be expected to dominate the bidding process given their undisguised interest in Nigerian Crude oil since 2005.

This attempt raise as much problems as it solves, since matters concerning the projected three refineries and the petro products are not very new and are in fact several years old. It seems to me that the People’s Republic of China is up to strange tricks and manipulations about their businesses in Nigerian Crude oil and is about time they offer explanations. For how could it that possible that a repeat of the information from 2005’s MOU about this refineries are part of a supposed agreement that will involves a kind of lend lease and the tenets of the reports about the Lekki Free Trade Zone suggest that the Refinery or refineries has a raft for private ownership. The only difference between 2005 MUO either for the facts of development of Agbami fields or drilling, is that this year, these groups of business people and their Chinese have a spokes woman long associated with Shell.

In October 2004, deepwater block OPL 222 was auctioned off and appraised during Obasanjo’s era. Production was then set to begin in 2010 and is expected to co-inside with 20% Chevron participation, 30% ExxonMobil, Nexen Petro which will participate at 20% range. The group that led the exploration and production then and now is China, and if all correspondence are right, especially IEA, China forced Nigeria of the Obasanjo’s administration into a MUO ‘memorandum of understanding’ in 2005, an understanding that involves Crude oil refineries as part of their Nigerian lobby to deal break with Shell. The initial licenses were offered to China and all indication will point to the fact that these licenses were not affected by the cancellation of the consequent 2006, 2007, 2008, auction.