The settlement agreement announced by President Bola Tinubu between the Federal Government, ENI, and Nigerian Agip Exploration Limited over Oil Prospecting Licence 245 is a significant development for Nigeria's oil and gas sector.
The dispute, which festered for more than 15 years and attracted international litigation, regulatory uncertainty, and reputational damage, had rendered one of the country's most commercially promising deepwater blocks a stranded asset.
That the administration has brought all parties to the table and secured a resolution deserves acknowledgement. But acknowledgement is not celebration. What matters now is whether this settlement translates into tangible benefits for Nigerians, or whether it becomes another case of the country giving away its patrimony under the guise of pragmatism.
The OPL 245 saga has been one of the most sordid chapters in Nigeria's oil industry. The block, located in the deepwater frontier of the Niger Delta basin, has been the subject of competing claims, opaque transactions, and corruption allegations spanning multiple administrations. The controversial 2011 deal, in which the Federal Government paid $1.1 billion to Malabu Oil and Gas, a company linked to former Petroleum Minister, Dan Etete triggered criminal proceedings in Italy and investigations across multiple jurisdictions.
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ENI and Shell, the original joint licence holders, were dragged through years of legal proceedings before Shell divested, leaving ENI as the sole operator of a block that should have been producing oil years ago.
The human cost is rarely discussed: billions in potential revenue lost, thousands of jobs never created, and a deepwater sector that fell behind West African competitors.
The Tinubu administration said the new settlement represents a significant improvement on the 2011 Resolution Agreement and reflects the policy framework under the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). According to the Special Adviser to the President on Energy, Olu Arowolo-Verheijen, the revised terms provide investors with clarity while ensuring stronger value accretion for the Federation.
In our view, these are the right words. The question is whether the terms match the rhetoric. Nigerians deserve to know the specific fiscal provisions of this agreement, the royalty rates, the production-sharing formula, the cost-recovery provisions, and the dispute resolution mechanisms.
Transparency is not optional here.
The entire history of OPL 245 is a cautionary tale about what happens when oil deals are struck behind closed doors.
With the dispute settled, the pathway is clear for a Final Investment Decision on the Zabazaba-Etan development, a project capable of adding approximately 150,000 barrels per day to Nigeria's production capacity. If this materialises, it would be a considerable boost to a country whose oil output has declined from a peak of 2.5 million barrels per day to roughly 1.45 million.
President Tinubu described the settlement as sending a clear signal to global investors that Nigeria is prepared to address legacy issues transparently and create a stable environment for long-term capital. This is the correct framing. But signals are only as credible as the actions that back them up. Nigeria's upstream sector is littered with unresolved disputes, contested licences, and regulatory ambiguity that continue to deter investment.
If the resolution of OPL 245 is to serve as a template, the administration must demonstrate the same resolve in tackling other legacy issues including disputes over several other oil blocks, the unresolved question of gas commercialisation frameworks, and the persistent gap between the promise of the PIA and its implementation on the ground.
There is also the matter of accountability. The original OPL 245 transaction remains one of the largest corruption scandals in Nigerian history. While Italian courts acquitted ENI and Shell executives in 2021 a verdict upheld on appeal, the underlying facts of the Malabu deal were never fully adjudicated in Nigeria. Dan Etete, the former minister who was the beneficial owner of Malabu Oil, has never been brought to trial in his own country.
The $1.1 billion that changed hands in 2011 was public money, disbursed from the Nigerian treasury through JPMorgan Chase to a company controlled by a former minister. That no Nigerian has been held accountable for this transaction remains a stain on the country's anti-corruption credentials. A settlement that draws a line under the commercial dispute without addressing the underlying corruption is incomplete.
We commend the institutions involved in reaching this resolution -- the Office of the Attorney General, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NUPRC, and NNPC Limited. But we urge the administration to publish the full terms of the settlement. The Nigerian public, whose resources are at stake, has a right to scrutinise these terms. The era of secret oil deals must end if this country is to build the investor confidence the president says he seeks.
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The resolution of OPL 245 is a necessary step. It is not, on its own, sufficient. Nigeria's deepwater potential will remain untapped as long as the broader investment climate remains hostile characterised by foreign exchange volatility, crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and a regulatory environment still finding its feet under the PIA.
The Zabazaba-Etan project, if it proceeds to Final Investment Decision, will require billions of dollars in capital expenditure. ENI and its partners will need sustained confidence that the rules will not change midway through the project cycle.
Nigeria cannot afford to squander this opportunity. The global energy transition is accelerating, and the window for monetising the country's hydrocarbon reserves is narrowing. Every year of delay is a year of lost revenue, lost employment, and lost growth. The Tinubu administration has taken an important first step in resolving a dispute that should never have dragged on this long. The harder work of ensuring that the settlement delivers real value and that the Zabazaba-Etan project moves from agreement to actual production begins now.
