Nigeria’s $9 Billion Debt To P&ID: Everything You Need To Know

Lies & Deceit: Everything You Need To Know About Nigeria's $9 Billion Debt To P&ID This post contains everything you will ever need to know about the Nigeria-P&ID gas deal. It's a pretty long read but is well-formatted for easy reading. The prelude Sometime in 2006, two Irish businessmen, Michael Quinn and Brendan Cahill, founded Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID). The company is a sole purpose company set up to utilize Nigeria’s huge natural gas reserves. On January 11, 2010, P&ID signed a Gas Supply and Processing Agreement (GSPA) with the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources was acting on behalf of the Umaru Musa Yar’Adua-led Nigerian Federal Government. As per the agreement, P&ID will process natural gas from oil mining leases (OML) 67 and 123 to generate electricity for Nigeria while making some considerable profits for itself. The license for OML 123 is held by Addax petroleum. Addax petroleum is a subsidiary of Mirror Lake Oil and Gas Company Limited, which itself is a subsidiary of the Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration & Development Corporation (SIPC). SIPC is a subsidiary of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (aka Sinopec Group). Exxon Mobil holds the license for OML 67. What exactly is P&ID? We already mentioned that P&ID was founded by Brendan Cahill and Michael Quinn in 2006. (Cahill is alive but Quinn is late. It seems he passed away on January 25, 2018.) P&ID claims it is a United Kingdom company even though it is registered in The British Virgin Islands (BVI). The British Virgin Islands is a British Overseas Territory (BOT). BOTs are not part of the UK. They have their own independent governments but depend on the UK for defense and foreign affairs. Why the British Virgin Islands? The British Virgin Islands is an infamous tax haven. Tax havens are countries or territories where multinationals register their businesses or subsidiaries to avoid paying taxes in their home countries. Most businesses registered in tax havens only exist on paper. These businesses — called shell companies — often have billions of dollars in the bank accounts registered in the name of the company even though they do not have physical offices or employees. The British Virgin Islands does not slam these companies with any taxes and only requires them to pay an annual license fee. Who sets up a shell company? Practically anyone; from the clean to the dirty. Corrupt politicians set up shell companies to hide stolen wealth. Criminal organizations set up shell companies to launder and hide their proceeds from crime. Rich people set up shell companies to hide their money from their significant other in case of a bitter divorce. Rich people and multinationals companies set up shell companies to: • Avoid paying taxes in their home country. • Hide patents. • Mask their country of origin. • Allow them operate in countries where they might not be allowed to. • Protect them from lawsuits in their country or the country where they operate. There are several other reasons but these are the most common. Is P&ID a shell company? Yes, P&ID is a shell company. This is evidently clear because P&ID is registered in British Virgin Islands and does have a physical headquarters or even a website. Its only website is pandidfacts.com, which is more of a blog than a website. Everything on the website is all about the failed Nigerian natural gas project. And what sort of multinational adds “facts” at the end of their top level domain? P&ID has no social media presence either. It is not on Facebook and only joined Twitter in April 2019. So far, it has 83 tweets and 17 followers. The tweets are all about the failed Nigerian gas deal while the followers are Nigerian and Irish journalists and newspapers. We think P&ID set up office in the British Virgin Islands to hide its taxes from the British government. 26 Likes 6 Shares