Addax petroleum has vowed to continue its operations in Nigeria. The Chinese-owned oil firm has been embroiled in a series of bribery allegations with some Nigerian officials and has led to shutting its operations in Geneva, Houston and Aberdeen.
General Manager External & Government Affairs, Addax Petroleum, Mrs. Dorothy Atake while restating the company’s commitment to its operations in Nigera said the future of the oil firm in Nigeria is “very bright”
“Our conviction in the country’s future is strong that is why we have plans for fresh investments of between $3-5 billion in Nigeria over the coming years.”
Mrs. Atake said part of the company’s objective included a program to optimize its oil and gas operations in the country and increase production from its existing onshore and offshore assets.
She said for almost two decades, Addax Petroleum, which has been operating a Production Sharing Contract, PSC with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, recorded cumulative production of over 425 million barrels of crude oil.
Over the years, Mrs. Atake said, the company took over the operatorship of oil prospecting leases, OPLs 98/118 (now OML 123, 124, 136, and 137), and OPLs 90/225, previously operated by Ashland Nigeria Oil Company, after 25 years operation between 1973 and 1998.
As contractor operating on behalf of Addax/NNPC PSC, Mrs. Atake said the company attained the production capacity through the deployment of advanced technology to sustain investments in oil reserves to grow production.
Addax Petroleum was originally part of the Addax and Oryx Group of Companies (AOG) which were established in 1987, but the company became an independent entity in 1994.
In August 2009, it was bought over by Sinopec. Sinopec is the world’s biggest oil refiner. Addax was initially focused on the oil and gas in the Middle East, the North Sea and Africa, but has recently focused its effort on West Africa.