The
Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria has revealed details on how the
former Minister of Petroleum stalled a long term oil deal with India
Diezani Allison Madueke
The Indian High Commissioner to Nigeria, Ajjampur R. Ghanashyam,
has revealed how former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani
Allison Madueke, refused to sign a long-term agreement with his country,
Nigeria’s number one oil buyer.
According to report, Ghanashyam stated that the former Minister used intermediaries, who collected $14 billion annual deal.
The envoy told Daily Trust at the weekend, that Nigeria was the
only country which used intermediaries in its oil deals with India,
He said: “From other countries, when we buy oil, whatever we want
to pay, we pay to the Ministry of Finance of that country. In Nigeria,
we pay to intermediaries. We would like to be dealing directly with the
Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). It’s not a good thing.
Why should we go through intermediaries?
“Secondly, we would also like to have long term agreement, which we
have with many countries: Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and other countries
from where we buy oil. Nigeria is the only country with whom we don’t
have an agreement. When we write a letter to NNPC, we don’t get a
response.”
The NNPC 2014 Annual Statistical Bulletin indicated that India bought 136,419,844 barrels of crude oil.
Ghanashyam added that apart from the lack of long-term agreement
between the two countries on crude oil purchases, in 2006, an Indian
company, Oil & Natural Gas Commission Videsh Limited (OVL) and
Mittal Energy International, which is a joint venture between OVL, an
Indian government company, and Mittal Energy a private firm, applied for
oil concession.
He said the Signature bonus sum of $25 million was paid, but
neither was the oil concession granted nor the money paid returned to
the Indian companies.
“How many years is it? Nine years. Even to get the concession
is not possible, and the money is not refunded to us. For nine years
your country has been sitting on this, and they make us go round and
round and round.
“We buy $15 billion worth of crude oil per year and we have the
potential of importing $50 billion worth of crude oil from Nigeria. We
can buy more because our requirement is going up.
“But if you continue to make us to pay through agents, and
continue to ask us to buy from the swap market, it means you don’t trust
us, and if you don’t trust us, we have to look for those who trust us
more.
“We are making concessions to Nigeria by buying your crude oil
because you’re our old friends and we’ve been friends for a long time,
and your crude oil is better quality. But you must take our interest
into account.”
Ghanashyam said India’s trade with UAE may not threaten India’s oil
import from Nigeria but that there were other overtures from oil
producing states.
According to him, “Today, oil is the buyers’ market, not the
sellers’ market. You can’t sit on your high horse and dictate to the
buyer. From Iran we used to buy 11 million metric tonnes. They want us
to raise it to 22 million metric tonnes because the sanction is being
lifted."
