The Taleveras founder’s latest court victory highlights the intricate legal and financial manoeuvres that define Nigeria’s oil trade.
Commodity traders Vitol and Glencore are set to receive $380m in compensation after their gas supplier, Talevaras Group of Companies – owned by Charles Igho Sanomi – sued Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) in the London High Court for non-delivery of gas cargoes.
NLNG is a joint venture of four oil firms: The Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC), which holds 49%; Shell, which owns 25.6%; and TotalEnergies and ENI, which hold 15% and 10.4%, respectively. NLNG produces about 5% of global LNG output.
Taleveras had agreed to purchase gas cargoes from NLNG for resale to Vitol and Glencore, but it failed to deliver, prompting the two firms to sue Taleveras. In turn, Taleveras blamed NLNG for the non-delivery and sued it. Many gas companies reneged on fixed price gas deliveries when energy prices skyrocketed after Russia’s invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.
Vitol was awarded $200m and Glencore got $180m, but it is not clear what Taleveras was awarded in the case, according to Reuters news agency.
Who is Igho Sanomi?
One of Nigeria’s wealthiest men, 49-year-old Sanomi is the son of the late Dickens Oghenereumu Patrick Sanomi, a senior police officer in Nigeria in the mid-1990s and a respected leader of the Urhobo ethnic group in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Insiders say his father’s influence helped open doors for him in the early stages of his career.
Sanomi began oil trading as a third-party contractor shortly after graduating from the University of Jos in the late 1990s. He connected local oil contractors with foreign partners who had the technical expertise and financial resources to execute projects. During this period, his network quickly expanded.
In 2001, he registered his oil firm, Sarian Oil, establishing his presence in the sector. He and his wife Eghogho renamed the company Taleveras in 2004, according to company documents.
Profit and controversy
In 2005, just a year after the Taleveras Group was registered, the company, along with Eastern Petroleum, was awarded OPL 288 in the Niger Delta. In 2014, Taleveras became part of a consortium led by Aiteo Group, which acquired Shell’s OML 29 and the Nembe Creek Trunkline for $1.7bn, according to Reuters. This was one of Shell’s largest assets at the time.
A year earlier, Taleveras had entered Nigeria’s electricity sector by winning the bid for Afam Power Plc with an offer of $260m.
Sanomi’s business dealings have drawn scrutiny. During President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration (2010-2015), when Diezani Alison-Madueke served as oil minister, Taleveras was among several companies that negotiated crude oil swap contracts for refined product imports. At its peak, Taleveras was trading 170 million barrels of Nigerian crude annually and had acquired oil production assets in several other African countries.
Companies involving businessmen Kola Aluko and Jide Omokore also negotiated Strategic Alliance Agreements for oil production with the NNPC when Alison-Madueke was oil minister.
These contracts, along with the crude oil swaps, were investigated by Nigerian and US authorities.
The US Department of Justice stated that Taleveras, along with oil traders Arcadia and Glencore, paid $1.2bn into Aluko’s account in Switzerland – proceeds from crude oil lifted from Aluko and Omokore’s company, Atlantic Energy and Drilling Concept. The Nigerian authorities claimed that Atlantic owed it over $1.7bn.
US Justice Department officials said Aluko had used the proceeds from crude oil swap deals to buy property and assets such as the ocean-going Galactica Star Yacht, one leased by musicians including Beyonce and Jay Z.
Lawyers for Taleveras say that all its transactions with Atlantic were legitimate and strongly denies it was involved in any wrongdoing.
Sullied image
But the publicity around the crude oil swaps and Strategic Alliance Agreements sullied Sanomi’s image in Nigeria and in December 2014, the Taleveras crude oil swap contract which had been in place since 2011 was not renewed.
His commercial fortunes took another hit with the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the 2015 elections and the crash in international oil prices later that year.
Sanomi was labelled a “Diezani boy” by some officials of the new president, Muhammadu Buhari. In the early stages of the Buhari administration, Taleveras missed out on several major contracts.
Sanomi then tried to secure a contract to supply biofuels to the US militray, where he had already cultivated high-level commercial contracts. When president Barrack Obama held an Africa-US Summit in 2014, Sanomi was a lead sponsor of an evening of African culture at the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC.
In November 2019, Bloomberg reported that Taleveras was ordered by the London High Court to pay over $3m to Credit Suisse and $2.7m to ING Bank for unpaid debts. Sanomi acknowledged the debts and didn’t contest the order.
Since then, Sanomi has restructured his business and focused his attention more on Cote d’Ivoire, where he also owned oil assets, although he has entered into fresh deals with Nigeria’s national LNG company.
The oil tycoon, who will turn 50 in May, also runs the Dickens Sanomi foundation named after his late father. The foundation has helped several poor families by paying medical expenses for children.
(The Africa Report)
