Tag Archives: shadow oil deals

Sanctions Busters for Russia

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In the year since the war in Ukraine began, once-dominant Western firms have pulled back from trading, shipping and insuring Russian oil. In their place, mysterious newcomers have helped sell the country’s crude. They are based not in Geneva, but in Hong Kong or Dubai. Many have never dealt in the stuff before. The global energy system is becoming more dispersed, divided—and dangerous.

Russia’s need for this alternative supply chain, present since the war started, became more pressing after December 5th, 2022 when a package of Western sanctions came into effect. The measures ban European imports of seaborne crude, and allow Russian ships to make use of the West’s logistics and insurance firms only if their cargo is priced below $60 a barrel. More sanctions on diesel and other refined products will come into force on February 5th, 2023 making the new back channels more vital still.

The Economist has spoken to a range of intermediaries in the oil market, and studied evidence from across the supply chain, to assess the effect of the sanctions and get a sense of what will happen next. We find, to the West’s chagrin and Russia’s relief, that the new “shadow” shipping and financing infrastructure is robust and extensive. Rather than fade away, the grey market stands ready to expand when the next set of sanctions is enforced.

As expected, China and India are picking up most of Russian embargoed oil barrels. Yet there is a surprise: the volume of cargo with unknown destinations has jumped. Russian oil, once easy to track, is now being moved through more shadowy channels….Battered tankers as much as half a century old sail to clandestine customers with their transponders off. They are renamed and repainted, sometimes several times a journey. They often transit via busy terminals where their crude is blended with others, making it harder to detect. Recently, several huge tankers formerly anchored in the Gulf were spotted taking cargo from smaller Russian ships off Gibraltar. Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which imported more Russian oil in the first ten months of 2022 than in the previous three years combined, seem to have blended and re-sold some to Europe. Malaysia is exporting twice as much crude to China as it can produce. Much of it is probably Iranian, but ship-watchers suspect a few Russian barrels have snuck in, too.

Most of Russia’s crude runs through grey networks which do not recognize the price cap but are not illegal, because they use non-Western logistics and deliver to countries that are not part of the blockade. friendlier locations…More than 30 Russian trading outfits have set up shop in Dubai—some under new names—since the war started. As Western traders have withdrawn, newcomers have emerged to sell to India, Sri Lanka, Turkey and others. Most have no history of trading Russian oil, or indeed any oil; insiders suspect the majority to be fronts for Russian state firms….

For Russia, growth in the grey trade has advantages. It puts more of its export machine outside the control of Western intermediaries. And it makes pricing less transparent.  Meanwhile, Russia’s sanctions-dodging will have nasty side-effects for the rest of the world. A growing portion of the world’s petroleum is being ferried by firms with no reputation, on ageing ships that make longer and dicer journeys than they have ever done before. Were they to cause an accident, the insurers may be unwilling or unable to cover the damage. Ukraine’s allies have good reasons for wanting to wash their hands of Russian oil. But that will not prevent debris from nearby wreckages floating to their shores. 

Excerpts from the The Economic War: Ships in the Night, Economist, Feb. 4, 2023

OPL 245: an Affair to Remember and Sanction

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Nigeria has long ignited interest from oil firms, but it can be a dangerously combustible environment when it comes to the risk of corruption. Two firms caught up in scandals are Royal Dutch Shell and Eni, Italy’s state-backed energy group.

The case centres on the purchase of a big offshore oil field known as OPL 245, and touches the top ranks of both firms. In the dock will be, among others, Eni’s current CEO, Claudio Descalzi, and Shell’s former exploration chief, Malcolm Brinded. Also on trial are the firms themselves, charged with failing to prevent bribery. The individuals face jail if convicted; the companies face fines. All deny wrongdoing.

In 2011 Shell and Eni jointly paid the Nigerian government $1.3bn for OPL 245. Prosecutors allege they knew the government would pass $1.1bn of the funds to a shell company called Malabu, controlled by Dan Etete, a former oil minister. They claim the companies had reason to believe Mr Etete would use much of what he received to pay off officials, including Nigeria’s president at the time, Goodluck Jonathan. They also suspect that more than $50m may have gone to Shell and Eni executives as kickbacks. Mr Jonathan has denied involvement. Mr Etete faces charges in Nigeria; his whereabouts are unknown…

International investors are particularly vexed about the alleged involvement of Shell, a blue-chip oil major. In 2017, after e-mails were leaked, it admitted that executives had known that much of the purchase price would go to Mr Etete, a convicted money-launderer. In the e-mails, they speculated that funds might flow on to Mr Etete’s political friends. One investor says that Shell, by emphasising for so long who the contract was with, not where the money was going, honoured the letter but not the spirit of good governance—“and that’s not good enough anymore”.

Excerpts from The OPL 245 Affair: Drillers in the Dock, Economist, Mar. 3, 2018

Shadow Oil Deals and Safe-Sex Transactions: Nigeria

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Deals for oilfields can be as opaque as the stuff that is pumped from them. But when partners fall out and go to court, light is sometimes shed on the bargaining process—and what it exposes is not always pretty. That is certainly true in the tangled case of OPL245, a massive Nigerian offshore block with as much as 9 billion barrels of oil—enough to keep all of Africa supplied for seven years.

After years of legal tussles, in 2011 Shell, in partnership with ENI of Italy, paid a total of $1.3 billion for the block. The Nigerian government acted as a conduit for directing most of that money to the block’s original owner, a shadowy local company called Malabu Oil and Gas. Two middlemen hired by Malabu, one Nigerian, one Azerbaijani, then sued the firm separately in London—in the High Court and in an arbitration tribunal, respectively—claiming unpaid fees for brokering the deal.

The resulting testimony and filings make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the uses and abuses of anonymous shell companies, the dilemmas that oil firms face when operating in ill-governed countries and the tactics they feel compelled to employ to obfuscate their dealings with corrupt bigwigs. They also demonstrate the importance of the efforts the G8 countries will pledge to make, at their summit next week, to put a stop to hidden company ownership and to make energy and mining companies disclose more about the payments they make to win concessions. On June 12th the European Parliament voted to make EU-based resources companies disclose all payments of at least €100,000 ($130,000) on any project.

The saga of block OPL245 began in 1998 when Nigeria’s then petroleum minister, Dan Etete, awarded it to Malabu, which had been established just days before and had no employees or assets. The price was a “signature bonus” of $20m (of which Malabu only ever paid $2m).

The firm intended to bring in Shell as a 40% partner, but in 1999 a new government took power and two years later it cried foul and cancelled the deal. The block was put out to bid and Shell won the right to operate it, in a production-sharing contract with the national petroleum company, subject to payment of an enlarged signature bonus of $210m. Shell did not immediately pay this, for reasons it declines to explain, but began spending heavily on exploration in the block.

Malabu then sued the government. After much legal wrangling, they reached a deal in 2006 that reinstated the firm as the block’s owner. This caught Shell unawares, even though it had conducted extensive due diligence and had a keen understanding of the Nigerian operating climate thanks to its long and often bumpy history in the country. It responded by launching various legal actions, including taking the government to the World Bank’s International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes.

Malabu ploughed on, hiring Ednan Agaev, a former Soviet diplomat, to find other investors. Rosneft of Russia and Total of France, among others, showed interest but were put off by Malabu’s disputes with Shell and the government. Things moved forward again when Emeka Obi, a Nigerian subcontracted by Mr Agaev, brought in ENI (which already owned a nearby oil block). After further toing and froing—and no end of meetings in swanky European hotels—ENI and Shell agreed in 2011 to pay $1.3 billion for the block. Malabu gave up its rights to OPL245 and Shell dropped its legal actions (see timeline).

The deal was apparently split into two transactions. Shell and ENI paid $1.3 billion to the Nigerian government. Then, once Malabu had signed away its rights to the block, the government clipped off its $210m unpaid signature bonus and transferred just under $1.1 billion to Malabu.  Tom Mayne of Global Witness, an NGO, has followed the case closely; he believes things were structured this way so that Shell and ENI could obscure their deal with Malabu by inserting a layer between them. Mr Agaev, Malabu’s former fixer, lends weight to this interpretation. It was, he says, structured to be a “safe-sex transaction”, with the government acting as a “condom” between the buyers and seller.

Oil companies in emerging markets: Safe sex in Nigeria, Economist, June 15, 2013, at 63