The Nigerian Agip Oil Company has secured a legal victory after the Court of Appeal in Abuja dismissed a $1.3bn claim by Malabu Oil and Gas concerning the ownership of the disputed Oil Prospecting Licence (OPL) 245, Nairametrics has reported.

The Court of Appeal ruled in favour of Agip, a subsidiary of Italian energy company Eni, overturning a 2020 judgment by the Federal High Court. The appellate court declared Malabu’s case an abuse of judicial process and statute-barred.

The dispute focused on OPL 245, a deepwater offshore oil field located around 150 kilometres off the Niger Delta. Malabu was first awarded the licence in 1998, but it was revoked in 2001 by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo and reassigned to Shell. Following a settlement agreement, Malabu regained the block in 2006 and sold it in 2011 to Shell and Agip for $1.1bn, with an additional $210mn paid to the Nigerian government as a signature bonus.

Despite the 2011 transaction, Malabu later filed a lawsuit asserting its rights to the block remained valid. Agip contested the Federal High Court’s jurisdiction, arguing that the suit was filed outside the statutory time limit and during the pendency of a related legal matter. The Court of Appeal upheld these objections.

The appellate court found that the Federal High Court had failed to properly consider Agip’s preliminary objections regarding the statute of limitations and the right to a fair hearing. The court held that the claim was filed beyond the permissible three-month window and should have been dismissed at the preliminary stage.

The decision marks a key development in one of Nigeria’s most protracted oil-related legal battles, which has also been linked to corruption investigations in multiple jurisdictions. In 2024, two Italian prosecutors were convicted for mishandling evidence in a related case that could have supported Eni’s defence.