As Nigeria continues to clamp down on tax defaulters, it has ordered some foreign oil and gas companies to pay nearly $20 billion in taxes owed to states, industries and government. According to Reuters report yesterday, a letter sent to the companies earlier this year via a debt-collection arm of the government, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), cited what it called outstanding royalties and taxes for oil and gas production. Specifically, Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, Exxon Mobil, Eni, Total and Equinor were each asked to pay the federal government between $2.5 billion and $5 billion, said the sources. Norway’s Equinor, which produced around 45,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in Nigeria in 2017, confirmed the request. “Several operators have received similar claims in a case between the authorities in Nigeria and local authorities in parts of the country,” an Equinor spokesman said. Exxon “is currently reviewing the matter”, […]