By Julie Ziegler
Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) — Nigeria, Africa’s biggest producer of crude oil, is planning to stop funding joint ventures with major oil companies and instead wants the money raised on international capital markets.
President Umaru Yar’Adua said that money spent by the government to finance partnerships with Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and others would be better used for public works and social services.
“Part of the reasons why we are restructuring our oil sector is to free the resources that we pay the oil companies under joint venture agreements for critical areas like power, education and health,” Yar’Adua said Nov. 2 in Wiesbaden, Germany, according to a statement from his office in Abuja, Nigeria.
Joint ventures with companies such as Shell, Total SA and Eni SpA are used to fund about 95 percent of projects of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp., the country’s state-owned oil company. The nation’s 2006 budget called for about $4.2 billion for joint venture funding, or “cash calls.”
Nigeria has more such ventures than other similar oil- producing nations, the country’s Minister of State for Petroleum H. Odein Ajumogobia said in an interview on Sept. 4.
Oil companies such as Shell have complained that the government’s retention of funds may prevent them from meeting an international deadline for ending gas-flaring by 2008.
Nigeria’s oil wealth has so far been unable to translate into prosperity, with a majority of the nation’s 140 million people living on less than $2 a day, according to World Bank data.
“We’ve not officially seen anything from the government so it’s too early to comment” on proposals to halt funding, Caroline Wittgen, a spokeswoman for Shell, said in an interview from Port Harcourt, Nigeria.
Michael Barrett, a spokesman for Chevron, declined to comment. Susan Reeves, a spokeswoman for Exxon, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
To contact the reporter on this story: Julie Ziegler in Lagos at [email protected] .
Last Updated: November 5, 2007 11:21 EST
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
