From AFRICA ENERGY INTELLIGENCE 24 AUGUST 2011
After ten years of maneuvering and court cases, Shell ended up by offering to buy Malabu Oil & Gas’ offshore block OPL 245 (see our report in AE1 656). The stakes in the game were indeed high. lying alongside Total’s Akpo block, the acreage could contain up to 9.23 billion barrels. Amid rising calls for local ownership of Nigeria’s oil resources, the transfer of the country’s most promising license to a Western major could prove politically dangerous to the new government of president Goodluck Jonathan.