Claudio Descalzi: Under investigation over alleged international corruption relating to Nigerian oil deal (OPL 245)

Four months after taking to the helm of Italian state-run Eni CEO, Claudio Descalzi is now the subject of a corruption investigation related to the acquisition of the large and lucrative deepwater oil prospecting lease (OPL) 245 offshore Nigeria.

Located in the Gulf of Guinea, OPL 245 has reserves estimated at 9 billion bbl. Eni acquired a 50 percent stake and the operatorship of the license in 2011, and says that the area “contains the highest potential non-developed mining deposits in the country’s deep offshore area.”

Descalzi headed Eni’s exploration and production unit at the time of the transaction.

Although considered one of Nigeria’s most valuable blocks, it has had a tangled, troubled history of ownership disputes.

In 1998, former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete awarded the block to a company in which he himself was the majority shareholder, Malabu Oil and Gas, for US$2 million. In 2011, Eni and Shell purchased the concession for $1.1 billion from the Nigerian government. In May 2012, UK authorities opened an inquiry against Eni and Shell, stating it had court documents showing that the money mysteriously made its way back to Etete.

Watchdog group Global Witness has been campaigning for authorities to investigate the transactions, stating at the time of Descalzi’s May appointment that his “personal involvement in a corrupt oil deal in Nigeria (OPL 245) raises serious questions about his suitability for his role managing the Italian oil giant.”

In February 2014, a committee within the Nigerian House of Representatives called to cancel the award to the two-partner consortium.

Claudio Descalzi is famed to have helped guide Eni’s transformation into one of the most successful oil and gas explorers with a series of spectacular discoveries in Africa. As head of exploration, Eni made the largest discovery in its history; a huge natural gasfield off the cost of Mozambique. The company has also found huge amounts of oil off the Republic of Congo. Between 2008 and 2013, Eni discovered more than 9.5bn barrels of oil equivalent – 2.5 times its production over the same period. It also has some of the lowest exploration costs in the industry, at just $1.20 a barrel on average.

Claudio Descalzi was born in Milan in 1955. He graduated in Physics in 1979 at the Politecnico di Milano. He joined Eni in 1981 as an Oil-Gas field petroleum engineering and project manager, for the development of the North Sea, Libya, Nigeria, and Congo. In 1990, he was appointed Head of reservoir and operating activities for Italy. In 1994, he was named Managing Director of the Eni subsidiary in Congo and in 1998 Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Eni’s subsidiary in Nigeria. From 2000 to 2001, he held the position of Executive Vice President for Africa, Middle East and China.