Chukwueke Exits Transcorp, To Manage OML 13 For SEEPCO/NPDC

Section: Petroleum People · June 27, 2018 · 3 comments | Tags: featured

Tony Chukwueke has given notice of his exit from Transnational Corporation of Nigeria and Tenoil, both of which are controlled by Tony Elumelu, a very visible Nigerian businessman.
Chukwueke has accepted the appointment, by Sterling Energy and Exploration Production Limited (SEEPCO) as the company’s Project Manager for Oil Mining Lease (OML) 13, located onshore Eastern Niger Delta.
OML 13 is held by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), who contracted technical services on the lease to Sterling Exploration, the aggressive Indian company. NPDC will fund the operations and Sterling will do the work.
Mr. Chukwueke comes to the job with a wide ranging experience. A 1977 Bachelor of Science graduate in Physics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he moved to the very top of Shell Nigeria’s widely respected Seismic acquisition unit of the Exploration department that he was officially titled the company’s “Corporate Geophysicist”, a very unusual title in the industry. He left Shell, after a stint in the UK covering the Middle East, to become technical assistant of the Minister of State for Petroleum, from which he became the Director of Petroleum Resources (2005 -2009).
Chukwueke joined Elumelu’s Tenoil Petroleum and Energy Resources and Heirs Holdings in 2011, and has been energy director of Transnational Corporation of Nigeria since October 2011, right from the same office (Elumelu controls the three companies).
Until has decision to exit, he had been in charge of the group’s strategy to emerge as one of the biggest indigenous oil and gas sector players, The primary job was to develop the Oil Prospecting Lease (OPL) 281 but the brief had since included Transcorp’s acquisition of Shell/TOTAL/ENI’s 45% equity in OMLs 11 and 17 for $1.2Bllion. Neither the development of OPL 281, nor the acquisition of OMLs 11/17, are anywhere close to realisation.

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Brad Jones says:

July 10, 2018 at 1:30 pm

Hello,

This is a MASSIVE scam under this new government. You are right about the change in jobs for Tony but you should know and investigate the whole story so that you can take a stand to publish it or not –

1. OML 13 – it was actually divided into three blocks OPL 2001, OPL 2002 and OPL 2003. Award letters, after a court case, for these blocks were handed over to them block owners in 2015.

2. All us block owners were legitimate and won the rights to the block during a bidding round that took place in 2007.

3. We then invited a foreign investor to fund our requirements and they even paid $40 million to DPR as the first tranche of our bidding fees.

4. In comes the vulture Tony Chukwueke and produced a very old letter from NPDC that staked claim on the block in 2007 which was then still called OML 13.

5. Tony then paid a huge some of money to Kachikwu, through Sterling (SEEPCO, who had to settle for a less lucrative block called OPL 2004 as it did not bid for these three blocks then) and he stalled the process by canceling the award letter and giving 30% equity to NPDC….this was the most random act. There was no way legally to do this but he inisited and the matter dragged on.

6. Our foreign partners swung into action and started canvassing with Kachikwu, see this Tony and Sterling feared they might lose the grip. So they went to GMD Baru, changed strategy and paid him a huge amount of money as well.

7. Baru, timed it all very well for his new masters, prepared a false memo which claimed that the block was erroneously given out as its against National Interest, took the memo personally to GMB and got him to sign on that…hence revoking all that has happened before, leaving all of us in a limbo, thereby also tarnishing the image of Nigeria globally as the foreign investor was left stunned with the turn of events.. On one hand, we were given the block by DPR, which had no previous claim and suddenly to this when the entire thing is revoked.

8. Baru purposely did this on 22nd December 2016 so that no immediate action can be taken by anyone as its holiday season.

9. Kachikwu also formed a committee comprising his own TA, Head of legal NNPC, Head of Legal NPDC, Head of Legal DPR and the committee came up with a recommendation that this block belongs to the new owners and that there is no such claim by NPDC that can stand legal ground.

Alas, nothing could be done as Sterling threw around a lot of money, made commitments to people like Tony who twisted every arm possible and greased a lot of palms to swing this in their favour.

We have all the paperwork to back it up, please do investigate this as this not only robbed Nigeria of new foreign investments but it will in the future also rob the country with taxes, royalties etc as Sterling is a gang of criminals from India, they have been barred to enter India as they owe more than $2 billion to the banks there. They dont pay the royalties and the taxes in Nigeria for the work they do here.

Please please investigate and get us the justice.

Thannks