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| British, Australian firms to testify in Mauritania oil probe [04 Mar 2006] |
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NOUAKCHOTT (AFP) |
The investigation concerns amendments to four oil contracts signed by Woodside and Ziedane Ould Hmeida, oil minister under the former regime ousted in August last year.
Hmeida is now in custody charged with crimes against the country's vital economic interests.
Woodside's partners, the Australian company Hardman and the British companies Premier Oil, British Gas and ROC Oil, will be questioned as witnesses,the court sources said.
The government says the amendments diminished the Mauritanian state's share in the oil and could cost it 200 million dollars (166 million euros) per year in lost revenues.
Woodside, an Australian-listed firm 34 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell, said it was confident that the disputed amendments were proper, valid and binding.
The exmaining magistrate last week questioned Woodside's local manager in the country and some 20 senior Mauritanian officials who served under the former regime of ex-president Maaouiya Ould Taya, overthrown last August in a military coup.
Mauritania became Africa's newest oil producer last week when it started pumping crude at its Chinguetti offshore oilfields in the Atlantic Ocean. It hopes to boost its economic growth for five to 20 percent by the oil revenue.
The amendments, which are supplementary to the production sharing contracts, were negotiated with the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum and approved by the Mauritanian government and the parliament before becoming law in 2005.
The new business should catapult Mauritania, rated one of the poorest countries on the continent, into the club of other African oil producing countries such as Angola, Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Libya and Nigeria.
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