Page 13 - AfrOil Week 17 2021

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

“It is essential that oil companies comply with companies. State-owned Chinese firms are
environmental protection regulations,” she among the biggest investors in South Sudan’s oil
commented. “I personally visited the oilfields sector. The country’s largest producer of crude
of our country, and what I saw is not what we oil is Dar Petroleum Operating Co. (DPOC), in
agreed. Pollution from oilfields is real. People which China National Petroleum Corp. (CNPC)
are dying because of the spills. The lives of our serves as operator and owns a 41% stake.
people are important, and I would like the oil DPOC is developing two licence areas in
companies to take that into account; otherwise the Melut basin known as Block 3 and Block 7.
we have the right as a department to stop their These two blocks in Upper Nile State account
operations.” for about three quarters of South Sudan’s total
The minister did not say whether Juba was oil production, which now stands at around
considering taking action against any specific 165,000-170,000 barrels per day (bpd). ™

PROJECTS & COMPANIES
Court order puts Carlyle Group closer

to compensation for SAMIR losses

MOROCCO CARLYLE Group is a step closer to retrieving at confirmed the verdict, ruling that the wind-up
least some of its nearly $400mn losses sustained should proceed.
when Morocco’s commercial court ordered the Creditors owed part of SAMIR’s estimated
Societe Anonyme Marocaine de l’Industrie du MAD44bn ($4.6bn) debt queued up to have
Raffinage (SAMIR) to go into liquidation in their claims validated by the courts in order to
2016. Last week, a New York court of appeal secure a slice of the proceeds from the sell-off.
reversed a July 2020 ruling that Carlyle could not On July 31, 2018, the Casablanca Commer-
appeal that insurance should cover its $396mn cial Court of Appeal ruled that the local Banque
loss. Centrale Populaire (BCP) – a major lender to
According to court documents, the July the company – had obtained valid guarantees
2020 decision by Justice O. Peter Sherwood to against lending of MAD1.2bn ($132mn) of debt,
reject Carlyle’s assertion that its oil had in effect out of total borrowings from the bank of around
been stolen by SAMIR had been “unanimously MAD2.9bn ($307mn).
reversed”. BCP thereby secured a place as a senior cred-
The plaintiffs (Carlyle) sought to “recover itor, with privileged claims on liquidated assets.
excess marine cargo insurance policy for losses A month earlier Glencore – another major cred-
they sustained when a Moroccan oil refinery itor – had a claim of MAD2.2bn ($233mn) val-
became insolvent. Under the arrangement idated. ™
between plaintiff Carlyle Commodities Man-
agement LLC, then known as Vermillion Asset
Management LLC, and the refinery, Carlyle
would pay for crude oil that the refinery had
contracted to purchase from third-party suppli-
ers, and the refinery would subsequently repur-
chase the oil from Carlyle.”
The fund filed a claim with its insurers Lloyd’s
of London to recover the value of the crude “after
the Moroccan government froze the refinery’s
bank accounts, rendering the refinery unable to
repurchase the commodities”.
The 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) refin-
ery ceased operating in late 2015 as debts left
SAMIR unable to finance fresh purchases of
crude feedstock and Saudi-Ethiopian major-
ity owner Mohamed al-Amoudi reneged on a
promised capital injection. Al-Amoudi’s Swe-
den-based Corrall Petroleum Holdings held a
67% stake in SAMIR.
In late September 2016, Corrall’s legal ave-
nues were exhausted, as the Court of Cassation The SAMIR plant is Morocco’s only oil refinery (Photo: SAMIR)

Week 17 28•April•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13