NNPC secures court order restraining ExxonMobil from leaving Nigeria
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited has secured an injunction from the Federal High Court in Abuja restraining the sale of shares of ExxonMobil’s Nigerian unit to any third parties.
It would be recalled that in February, Seplat Energy Plc, a major energy company, had agreed to buy the entire onshore and shallow-water assets of ExxonMobil in Nigeria, but the NNPC had opposed the deal.
However, on July 6, NNPC secured an order restraining Mobil Producing Nigeria Ltd and Mobil Development Nigeria Plc from selling, trading, allocating, transferring, or disposing of their shares in their interests covered by or connected to the Joint Operating Agreement between them and the NNPC.
The order restrains “sale of assets covered in Oil Mining Lease 68, Oil Mining Lease 69, Oil Mining Lease 70 and Oil Prospecting Licence 94, to anybody, person (s), company, consortium or entity howsoever described pending the determination of the claimant/applicant’s motion filed on the 5th of July or when the judicial tribunal is duly constituted and can make interim preservation orders,” the motion reads.
The motion, with suit no: FCT/HC/BW/CV/173/22 m/203/2022, was filed on July 5 at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, in the Abuja division, presided over by Justice B. Belgore. It had the upstream regulator as one of the defendants.
