World oil major, Shell on Tuesday said a directive by the Nigerian government to foreign oil companies to pay $20 billion in taxes owned the country will delay the final investment decision (FID) on its Bonga Southwest deepwater oilfield.
“It is something that has gone through the courts in Nigeria which relates to an original clause within the original PSCs (production sharing contracts).
“We will have to take it seriously but we think it has no merits.
“We’ll need to resolve that before we ever FID the Bonga Southwest project,” Shell’s Head of Upstream, Andy Brown said.
The Bonga Southwest deepwater oilfield is one of the largest in Nigeria with an expected production of 180,000 barrels per day.
