• Agip, a unit of Eni, wins appeal in the long-running OPL 245 dispute.
• Nigerian court rules Malabu’s claim was filed too late to proceed.
• Verdict bolsters Agip’s legal position on the oil block, with no current challenges.

In the high-profile OPL 245 affair tied to Nigeria’s oil sector, the Abuja Appeal Court has overturned a December 2020 decision that had allowed a case by Malabu Oil & Gas against Agip, a local subsidiary of Italy’s Eni, to proceed.

As reported by local media on May 27, the appellate judges accepted Agip’s argument that Malabu’s legal action, filed in March 2017, came too late to be admissible. The court ruled that the statute of limitations had expired.

“The claim as constituted is statute-barred, being a suit against the actions of the Minister of Petroleum Resources [Dan Etete, ed], a public officer, for the allocation of an oil prospecting licence, over five years after the said allocation,” the judgment stated.

The unanimous decision, issued on May 23, upholds Agip’s reliance on the prescription argument and noted that lower court judges had failed to address key issues, including statutory deadlines and fair trial rights.

The ruling consolidates Agip’s legal standing over the OPL 245 block, eliminating current judicial obstacles. It follows previous favorable rulings in the UK and Italy over the same matter.

The decision is also expected to reassure Oando, which acquired Agip’s Nigerian upstream portfolio last year. OPL 245 is part of that asset base, and the company is targeting a production plateau of 100,000 barrels of oil and 1.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day by 2029.