Oil trading giants Glencore, Taleveras and Arcadia, have not been indicted for any wrongdoings in the ongoing asset forfeiture case in the United States against controversial Nigerian businessman Kola Aluko.
The US Justice department recently filed a civil complaint seeking the forfeiture and recovery of approximately $144 million in assets belonging to Kola Aluko that are believed to be the proceeds of corruption which is alleged to have been laundered in and through the U.S.
Court documents filed by the U.S Justice department shows that oil-trading giants Glencore, Taleveras and Arcadia paid millions of dollars to Aluko and companies to fulfill legitimate third party crude off-take and assignment contract obligations, as illustrated in pages 30-36 of its civil complaints. The US Justice Department believes that instead of utilizing these funds legitimately, these funds were used by Aluko to fund a number of acquisitions for Nigeria’s former oil minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, which included lavish homes in London and an expensive lifestyle.
In a recent press statement, Alex School, a Senior Legal Advisor with Taleveras, said none of the 3 trading companies mentioned in the report have been indicted for any wrongdoing.
“It is very unfortunate how we have seen distortion of facts, mischievous and libelous headlines, content and defamation in some local Nigerian online and social media platforms that may have been used to cause mischief. We are presently investigating this and considering our legal options accordingly, we take reputation damage very seriously and will act, without no doubt. Further to this, it is worthy to note that neither Taleveras, Igho Sanomi, nor its associated companies benefited from the Atlantic strategic Alliance production in any shape or form, records are there to show this squarely. The reverse is actually the case, as there was a clear breach of contract and as such there is currently an ongoing commercial and contractual dispute. Firm actions commenced a while ago and still on going, hence I will not comment any further on this matter,” he said.
Taleveras made the news recently for wining block EG 07, in the highly competitive oil block bidding round in Equatorial Guinea; other winners were ExxonMobil and Ophir.
Taleveras, a $2 billion (revenues) commodities trading company, is engaged in the sourcing and trading of petroleum products and in upstream oil and gas development operations. Taleveras, due to its capacity, trading expertise and financial strength, sources and engages in procuring third party oil contracts and establishing new Joint Venture arrangements in order to access oil productions. The company performs on these contracts handling the physical delivery, financing, risk management and logistics for numerous first class end users and major refiners.
Glencore is one of the world’s largest global diversified natural resource companies and a major producer and marketer of more than 90 commodities. The Group’s operations comprise around 150 mining and metallurgical sites, oil production assets and agricultural facilities.
With a strong footprint in both established and emerging regions for natural resources, Glencore’s industrial and marketing activities are supported by a global network of more than 90 offices located in over 50 countries and employs 155,000 worldwide.
Arcadia Petroleum is an independent trading company covering the physical oil and oil derivative markets. The company also engages in the development of carbon credit schemes. The company which was founded in 1988 is based in London, United Kingdom. It has operations in Australia, the Middle East, Singapore, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The company also has a crude oil storage terminal in Cushing, Oklahoma.