The US Securities and Exchange Commission has ended its investigation into the acquisition of a Nigerian offshore oil block by Royal Dutch Shell and Eni, the oil majors have said.
Eni and Shell jointly acquired the rights to Oil Prospecting Licence 245 in 2011 for about $1.3bn but the deal had spawned legal cases spanning several countries.
OPL 245 is one of the biggest sources of untapped oil reserves on the African continent with reserves estimated at nine billion barrels.
“SEC has notified us that it has closed its inquiry into Shell in relation to OPL 245,” Reuters quoted a Shell spokeswoman as saying on Thursday.
On Wednesday, Italy’s Eni, which acquired the OPL 245 block together with Shell, said SEC had also closed its investigation into its activity in Nigeria, as well as other activities in Congo.
“Separately from the Algeria Settlement, SEC informed Eni that, based on the information currently available to SEC, it is otherwise closing its pending investigation of Eni, which also encompassed inquiries into the OPL 245 matter and Eni’s activities in Congo, without recommending further enforcement action,” the firm said in a statement seen by our correspondent.
Eni and Shell are currently on trial in Italy over allegations they bought OPL 245 knowing most of the $1.3bnn price would go to agents and middlemen in bribes.
In February 2020, A Milan court rejected a prosecution request to hear testimony from a former legal adviser to Eni who had accused the company of spying on judges.
The Federal Government had in December 2018 filed a $1.1bn lawsuit against the two oil firms in a commercial court in London in relation to the deal.
