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Lagos Oil Hub Ladol Takes Samsung Heavy Industries to Court

Lagos Oil Hub Ladol Takes Samsung Heavy Industries to Court

(Bloomberg) -- Ladol, a Nigerian logistics company that operates a hub for the offshore oil industry, has started a court action against Samsung Heavy Industries Co. Ltd. and said it’s ending ties with the South Korean ship-builder.

“Samsung’s contract expired and due to the failure to meet the minimum standards required to qualify for an operating license, it has not been renewed,” a spokesman for Ladol said in a response to questions. Ladol has filed a suit against the company at the Federal High Court in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, he said.

A Samsung Heavy Industries spoke didn’t immediately respond to an email requesting comment.

Samsung completed the construction of one of the world’s largest floating oil platforms for Total SA at Ladol’s base in Lagos last month. It built the $4 billion Egina vessel, designed to hold 2.3 million barrels of oil, in South Korea and Nigeria, before it set sail for a deep-water field off the Niger River delta coastline.

The project was seen as a test of the Nigerian government’s drive to build an oil-services industry and get more international energy companies to use local firms.

Amy Jadesimi, a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who is Ladol’s managing director, said in a May interview that she would probably bid for similar upcoming work from the likes of Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA once Egina was finished.

To contact the reporter on this story: Paul Wallace in Lagos at pwallace25@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Dana El Baltaji at delbaltaji@bloomberg.net, Dulue Mbachu, Robert Brand

©2018 Bloomberg L.P.