Taleveras ‘complies with international trading standards’

The Taleveras Group says all its business transactions and investments in the oil sector have been in compliance with international trading standards.

The group has been trading and engaging in third party contracts, inclusive of oil and gas upstream operations, in the last 17 years.

Commenting on Wednesday the case by the US department of justice, Taleveras said neither it nor its associated companies lifted any oil from the Atlantic Drilling Fluids.

In a statement signed by its legal counsel, Alex School,  the company — which just won oil blocks in Equatorial Guinea — said the legal case against Atlantic Drilling Fluids has nothing to do with Taleveras or its chairman, Igho Sanomi (pictured).

The company said online reports were not only misleading but “grossly inaccurate”.

The statement said: “The attention of Taleveras legal team has been drawn to online publications related with a case against Atlantic Drilling Fluids. This legal case is not against Taleveras or Igho Sanomi.

“Some of these publications are misleading and grossly inaccurate. It is thus proper to set the records straight.

“One of Taleveras core activities since 2000, is sourcing, trading and engaging in third party contracts, inclusive of oil and gas upstream operations.

“Taleveras due to its capacity, trading expertise and financial strength, continues to source and engage in procuring third party oil contracts.

“Taleveras performs on these contracts handling the physical delivery, risk management and logistics from start point to its numerous first class end users and major refiners.

“This process involves verification of the contracts with the issuing authority to authenticate and further compliance with our lending banks internal due diligence processes. This is no different from International Trading Standards performed by the numerous international and major oil and gas companies operating in Nigeria.

“As it relates to the US department case against Atlantic Drilling, please note that Taleveras and the other two major oil trading houses (Glencore and Arcadia) were not faulted for embarking on a legitimate transaction, as all payments were made based on legitimate third party contracts with private companies and not NNPC.

“This is indeed compared to a buyer of a property who embarks on verification of property title documents with the issuing authority and upon verification, goes into a sales contract and then makes contractual payment to the seller. The Buyer certainly has no control in whatever the seller does with his proceeds from the sale.

“In concluding, the ultimate aim of contracting is to off-take crude oil from asset productions.

” It is worthy to note that neither Taleveras nor its associated companies lifted any oil from this production through Atlantic. Terms of the agreement were breached and hence a legal dispute and appropriate filings made in respected court of jurisdiction.

“We will thus refrain from making further comments.”

PHOTO CREDIT: FORBES