With little hope, Nigeria pushes USD 62 bn claim from oil majors
Nigeria is looking to claim $62 billion from international oil firms for back revenues it says it is owed -- but even the country's own oil minister admits the government has little chance of success.
The eye-watering amount relates to a 1993 law governing production sharing agreements between the country and oil majors that said the revenue split should be reviewed if prices reached over USD 20 per barrel.
Despite the price of crude soaring above that point over the past two decades the division of spoils was never recalculated -- and Africa's biggest oil producer insists the time has come to pay up.
In October 2018, three oil-rich states in southern Nigeria won a court ruling obliging the central government to up its share of the revenues from the lucrative offshore fields.
When the law governing production-sharing contracts came into effect 26 years ago, foreign oil majors agreed to pay about 20 percent of revenues from deep offshore facilities to the government.
The authorities ...