Crude swap: NNPC recovers $62bn from AITEO

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has recovered $202.4 million (about N62 billion) from AITEO Group.

According to the Corporation on Tuesday, the recovered money was as a result of a final settlement reached with AITEO Group over an outstanding debt of under-delivery of petroleum products under the crude swap contract between 2012 and 2014.
Under the crude swap deal by the NNPC during the Goodluck Jonathan administration, the NNPC allocated crude oil to trading companies in exchange for processed petroleum products.

However, the deal met with strong criticism from stakeholders.
According to analysts, the swap deal was manipulated by oil firms, in collusion with top public officials to swindle the Nigerian government.

However giving reason, government said it embarked on the deal because the local refineries were not working to their fullest capacities.

On Tuesday, the NNPC spokesperson, Ndu Ughamadu, said after reconciliation of records between their business transactions and subsequent agreement, AITEO Group paid in full all its outstanding indebtedness to all NNPC downstream entities totalling about $202.35 million.

According to Ughamadu, the amount included AITEO’s share of the total $184 million indebtedness by three companies on crude swap, including Televeras Group of Companies and Ontario Oil Gas Ltd.

Daily Times gathered that after negotiations with NNPC, although Televeras Group agreed to pay an initial $17.2 million and $10 million later, there was no earlier information on the offer by AITEO, which also agreed to settle its debt.

NNPC spokesperson said that AITEO’s agreement to settle the $202.4 million debt after its engagement with the NNPC on the issue was to show its co-operation and commitment towards a successful recovery process.

Swiss non-governmental advocacy organization, the Berne Declaration, had said that AITEO Energy owned by Benedict Peter and Francis Peter was one of the seven major Nigerian fuel importers identified as the worst culprits in schemes employed by Nigerian and foreign fuel importers to swindle the country.
The report, published in November 2013 titled, Swiss Traders’ Opaque Deals in Nigeria, described the schemes employed by Nigerian and foreign fuel importers, such as creating offshore subsidiaries referred to as “letterbox companies”, ship-to-ship transfer to create untraceable paperwork, payment of subsidy money to phantom and non-existing importers, and partnering with politically- exposed fraudsters to defraud the country over $6.8 billion from 2009 and 2011.

The Lagos-based AITEO Energy, which is a subsidiary of Geneva-based Aiteo Suisse AG, was asked by the then Technical Committee on Payment of Fuel Subsidy to reimburse the Nigerian government over N578 million in subsidy fund it falsely collected.
The company was one of the three oil marketing firms whose offshore processing agreements were terminated on August 26, 2015 after the contract was found to have been ridden with corruption.

Ughamadu said as part of the debt recovery process, negotiations were still on-going with the management of Ontario Oil & Gas Limited to make a formal commitment to settle all its outstanding debts under a crude oil swap contract that existed between 2012 and 2014.
The NNPC spokesperson said the Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Maikanti Baru, has vowed to ensure that the on-going recovery process was completed and all debts settled.

He said “the Management of the Corporation under the leadership of Dr. Maikanti Baru is committed to ensuring transparency and adequate public information on the on-going recovery effort. The Corporation shall continue to provide further update on the recovery process.”