Addax Petroleum confirms resignation of Managing Director

Addax Petroleum Development Nigeria Limited has confirmed the resignation of its Senior Vice President/Managing Director, Colin Klappa.

Klappa served as a Senior Vice President of Exploration & Development at Addax Petroleum Corporation and served as its Senior Vice President of Exploration & Middle East.

He joined Addax Petroleum in May, 2008, and served as Managing Director of Cameroon operations, General Manager of Exploration, and Managing Director Middle East.

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Prior to joining Addax, he spent most of his 32 years career with numerous Chevron subsidiaries in upstream E&P technical, managerial and leadership positions in Canada, Australia, United States, Nigeria, UK, Colombia, and Kazakhstan.

According to a statement released by the General Manager (External and Government Affairs), Dorothy Atake, disclosed that Yonghong Chen, the company’s Deputy Managing Director (Operations), would be the Acting Managing Director with effect from June 18, 2018, the Premium Times reported.

Workers of the company recently announced the commencement of an industrial action against the management of the company. The industrial action was sequel to the expiration of the ultimatum the company’s chapter of PENGASSAN gave the management then-led by Mr. Klappa over “some unresolved burning issues.”

According to Chris Ogiewonyi, Chairman PENGASSAN at Addax said the indefinite action was a culmination of a series of failed and inconclusive communications between the workers’ union and the management over alleged “culture of impunity against some of its officials.

Recently, the Chief Executive Office at its Geneva Office, Zhang Yi, and the legal director were arrested over bribery schemes carried out by the firm in Nigeria. Details of the allegations revealed payments for “questionable transactions” to some  Nigerian lawyers and a company owned by a politician, Emeka Offor, with a huge chunk of the money believed to be used to bribe government officials.

The company later reached an agreement to pay a 31 million Swiss francs (about N11.5 billion) fine in Geneva, Switzerland to settle the bribery charges against some officials in Nigeria.

Also recently, the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the office of the Attorney General of the Federation, commenced legal proceedings against Addax Petroleum Development Nigeria Limited, over the company’s alleged under-remittance of $3 billion in taxes and royalties.

Recent drop in oil prices had forced the company to shut operations in Geneva, Aberdeen, and Houston in the United States of America.

However, the company said it is strongly committed to its operations in Nigeria. According to its General Manager External & Government Affairs, Addax Petroleum, Mrs. Dorothy Atake restates the company’s commitment to its operations in Nigeria noting that the future of the oil firm in Nigeria is “very bright”.

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 also revealed plans by the company to invest $3.5 billion in Nigeria over the years.

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.

About Addax

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 – China National Petroleum Corporation, who coughed out US$7.24 billion for the acquisition. Sinopec is the world’s biggest oil refiner.