And Just Like That... was the 2021 reboot of the HBO television series Sex and the City. It is about the lives and loves of a group of fashionable, single women in New York, twenty years on from the original hit series.
Equally glamorous, vacuous and consumerist, And Just Like That... is about as far from the gritty reality of the offshore industry as you can imagine. Plot lines such, as “Carrie juggles who to take to the Met Gala as her 'plus one' and then has a fashion disaster when her custom-designed dress doesn't fit," are probably not problems encountered every day amongst the Baird Maritime readership on rigs and boats, or even in the Louisiana offices of Edison Chouest, but let's not judge.
However, as we shall see, the phrase "and just like that" perfectly described several sudden and (un)surprising events in the offshore industry in recent weeks.
In February, we noted that Nigeria's former Petroleum Minister Diezani Alison-Madueke is on trial for corruption in London, facing five counts of accepting a bribe and one count of conspiracy to commit bribery at Southwark Crown Court.
The former OPEC president has had a pretty tough time since her tenure in cabinet in Abuja. As the American authorities had previously confiscated the yacht Galactica Star from her, along with her property in the US, the Nigerian authorities raided her home and seized several million US dollars in 2017. Her husband, a retired admiral, later dumped her in an acrimonious divorce. And recently, she said she is recovering from cancer.
She has appeared in the dock alongside Ms Olatimbo Ayinde, 54, another oil industry executive, who is charged with two counts of bribery. The Nigerian press has reported that Ms Ayinde is, “a controversial Nigerian businesswoman and alleged mistress of President Bola Tinubu.” We cannot comment on that.
Ms Alison-Madueke’s brother Doye Agama, a former archbishop, has also been charged by British prosecutors of conspiracy to commit bribery as part of her case, and he appeared in court by video link to deny the charges that money laundering occurred through his, er, church in the north of England. It is all very unfortunate.
Last Monday, Ms Alison-Madueke took to the stand to defend herself. Only, it was a bit hard for her to defend herself, as she claimed that, Just Like That… much evidence to prove her innocence had disappeared. She testified that her defence had been hindered by the loss of receipts, invoices and diaries that she said she had copied to protect herself from what she described as “political persecution,” as Alistair Gray reported in The Financial Times.
As per Mr Gray's court coverage, “She told jurors, 'There are a lot of documents that I think would have assisted us,' in the case, including receipts showing expenses had actually been reimbursed by her.”
The disgraced former minister stated in court that documents needed for her defence had gone missing after her home in Abuja was searched by Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crime Commission.
“I found it very strange,” she said. “Thousands of my documents… suddenly disappeared.” Oh no!
Ms Alison-Madueke has denied seeking or taking bribes, insisting her role as government minister was only a policymaking position in which she formally signed off on oil and gas contracts, but, and – this is a genuine surprise – she said she had no role in determining who won them.
Notwithstanding her claim that as minister she held a purely titular role, prosecutors have alleged that, for some inexplicable reason, various Nigerian oil contractors gave her various “perks” including chauffeur-driven cars, flights on private jets, a personal shopper at the famous department store Harrods, and the free use of various properties in and around London.
She also told the court she had no recollection of whether she was at an address where a Nigerian contractor delivered £100,000 in cash (now US$135,000) and that that she was unaware of the funds, and that the money, “was not received by me”. Hmm.
We'll keep you posted on the trial, and we would recommend any oil ministers reading this to back up your files to the cloud and… maybe not rely on paper records only.
One of the more unattractive interesting sides of the oil business is how unsavoury entrepreneurial individuals seek to profit from the flows of money and oil from often small and weak states that are developing oil production for the first time.
Guyana is a case in point, being a country where ExxonMobil and its partners first produced oil in late 2019, but which is expected to have eight floating production facilities by 2030 and daily production of around two million barrels per day then.
Now, a young German oil trader named Christopher Eppinger – who made what he claims is a US$250 million profit trading Russian oil after Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine in 2022 from Dubai price cap compliance and the legal but judicious blending of crude from mixed sources – has moved to Guyana to tap into its multibillion-dollar oil boom. He has now declared that he will invest up to US$60 million over the next three years through his company Petrichor Energy, which he claims is buying a quarry (!?), establishing a trading office, and wanting to bid on government contracts to ship crude and other fuels. Of course he does.
“I’m getting goosebumps,” the 31-year-old told the Financial Times in a phone interview from Georgetown, the capital of Guyana. “This is exactly what I was waiting for my whole life. I’m coming into a new market where everything is possible.”
A new market? I guess Mr Eppinger was so busy buying and selling Russian oil in Dubai that he missed the country’s production passing 600,000 barrels per day in 2024.
Or perhaps he was distracted by the fact that a Nigerian client of Petrichor’s received US$30 million of gasoil into storage, but has not paid the company for it for three years, as per the case filed at the high court in London, which was reported in Upstream last week.
Petrichor is seeking to recover the 27,000 tonnes of gasoil from the two storage facilities to which it delivered the product in Nigeria to the wonderfully named Ultimate Oil and Gas, which is owned by Nigerian millionaire Alhaji Abdulrahman Musa Bashar.
One of the tank farms where the oil is stored is owned by Mr Bashar, allegedly, and the other by his brother, Petrichor claimed. Unfortunately, the tank farm companies are refusing to cooperate and release the cargo back to the seller, which has retained title.
Guyana has already suffered the ignominy of its shipping register being tarnished by the association with Suneil Kumar his subsidiary Nautilus Register, which issued fake certification for the Dark Fleet of sanctions-busting tankers after Guyana cancelled its authority to act as international registry, as we covered previously in January.
The Guyana Administration quickly severed ties with Kumar and Nautilus Register in 2022 after the Guyana-flagged ship Eurika was found shipping US$5 million of illegal weapons and ammunition into Dakar, Senegal. Unfortunately, Thandi McAllister, the director of legal services for Guyana’s maritime administration, told the excellent maritime reporter Michelle Wiese Bockmann that Nautilus continued to issue certificates and flag documents to "dark fleet" tankers even after the termination of its contract. And to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars for issuing those illegitimate documents which were then used by some of the highest profile Russian tankers in the dark fleet.
Mr Eppinger celebrated his thirtieth birthday in the South of France with a party where he served 300 bottles of Cristal champagne, and explained how he traded US$2 billion of Russian oil during the war here. If I was an official in Georgetown, I would be very wary of individuals like Mr Eppinger. As one anonymous commentator with 155 likes wrote under the article about his Georgetown venture, “Oh, this guy again. I'm getting Jan Marsalek vibes.”
We stress that Mr Eppinger maintains he made his fortune completely lawfully.
On February 6, the subsea support vessel Bourbon Evolution 807 was sold in an online auction on the Shipbid.net website by Chinese lenders ICBC to the UAE’s Astro Offshore, part of India’s Adani Group, for US$35 million. There were no other bidders, so the ship was sold for the reserve price, uncontested. It remains in Abidjan to this day undergoing repairs and maintenance.
The 2014-built, DP3 vessel with 1,200 square metres of clear deck space and both a 150-ton active heave compensated crane and a 40-ton secondary crane became the most valuable and sophisticated asset in the Astro fleet, which has turbocharged its growth since its new Indian owners acquired 80 per cent in 2024 for US$185 million.
Astro then spent around US$100 million buying platform supply vessels (PSVs) in Africa from Alphard Marine and from owners who had placed the ships under management with CS Offshore, as well as suspended the newbuilding anchor handlers in China, Astro Sculptor and Astro Sagitta and the multipurpose vessel formerly known as Island Sapphire.
Now Astro has doubled down in its bet on subsea support vessels for West Africa, buying the 2021-built Energy Savanah from Clear Ocean Partners and Pelagic Partners. No figure was given for the price paid by Astro for the Golden Energy Offshore-managed vessel. Astro said in its press release that it has a contract for the ship, which it will rename Astro Atlas, with Oceaneering International, believed to kicking off with end user BP in Mauritania.
The ship was previously flipped by John Fredriksen’s Seatankers to Pelagic Partners in only 2024, so Astro will be the third owner in the five years since delivery. How much value is there to be squeezed out of a ship that has been twice flipped already and was delayed in delivery from the yard in Qingdao by nearly a decade after its initial order by long lamented Toisa?
Astro Atlas is equipped with a 150-tonne subsea AHC crane, a 25-tonne secondary crane, an integrated moonpool, and accommodation for up to 100 personnel.
“With our continued investment in modern, high-spec assets, the introduction of Astro Atlas significantly enhances our operational capability,” said Mark Humphreys, CEO of Astro Offshore, in the press release. “As our largest and most capable vessel to date, she enables us to support a broader range of complex offshore operations and respond more effectively to evolving client requirements.”
And just like that...Golden Energy’s fleet has halved in size. Following the sale of three DP2 PSVs from its fleet earlier this year, Golden Energy and its shareholders now find themselves with a fleet half the size it was in January.
If you were one of Jeffrey Epstein’s most trusted assistants who found and approached models and young women for the disgraced and now dead sex offender for about a decade (and who pitched family members for jobs in a leading UAE port and terminal operator), you might expect your testimony would be of interest to the authorities.
Surely the FBI would be following up on who among the rich and powerful were involved in the trafficking of vulnerable young women for sex parties organised by Mr Epstein. But, as his former assistant, Russian citizen and US resident Svetlana Pozhidaeva, has found out… no, not really.
Ms Pozhidaeva (also known as “Julia Santos” in the Epstein emails and by her nickname Lana) was interviewed by our favourite anti-corruption website OCCRP.net and claimed that despite recruiting women into the circle of the abuser, she herself was also a victim. She continues to live in the US and has set up a charity to hold conferences for women’s empowerment. Of course she has.
She has not been charged with any crimes, and she has not testified before Congress, despite her intimate knowledge of many of the victims. She claims Mr Epstein also bullied and manipulated her, whilst paying her US$100,000 a year. Identifying as a victim, she has now succeeded to have her name redacted from the files released by the Department of Justice.
However, there is evidence to suggest that maybe her father, Yury Pozhidaev, a retired lieutenant colonel in the Russian military, is also a career intelligence officer, an allegation he has denied. Surprise! Would this mean that perhaps the Russian intelligence services have blackmail material on the associates of Mr Epstein? Surely not!
Yuri Pozhidaev and Lana’s mother Irina both graduated from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in Moscow, which is colloquially known as a “spy school,” as per reporting from the Russian investigative reporting site Important Stories. Other sources have found through leaked databases that in 2022, Yuri Pozhidaev sent three letters to the address at 20/2 Bolshaya Lubyanka — home to the Moscow regional FSB pension department. Strange that.
His career pattern mirrors what one would expect of a senior Russian intelligence operative moving between military services and senior positions in Russian state enterprises and projects like the Caspian Sea corridor to Iran.
After her parents met Mr Epstein, they also began finding and offering him women for his network, journalists Nikita Kondratyev and Egor Feoktistov found. For example, Lana’s mother attempted to “offer” a woman from Ukraine to Mr Epstein, who, in her words, was, “in a really bad situation,” whilst her father, Lieutenant Colonel Pozhidaev, sent Mr Epstein photos of young women by email.
Ms Pozhidaeva attempted to place her brother Sergey via Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, the Chairman of the global logistics giant DP World and close associate of Mr Epstein, into that company. She did not succeed, apparently, but the DP World HR team might want to look carefully at the appointments made by their former boss in that era.
As we have noted, Mr bin Sulayem is not the only marine industry figure associated with Mr Epstein. American Navy Secretary John Phelan, who acts as the US Navy’s top civilian leader, was listed on a passenger manifest list for Jeffrey Epstein’s private plane, documents in the files show, as reported by CNN.
According to the flight manifest, Mr Phelan travelled with the disgraced sex offender himself, and Mr Epstein’s close associate, Jean Luc Brunel, who was charged with rape of a minor, from London to New York in March 2006, using Mr Epstein’s private Boeing 727. Mr Phelan has not explained exactly what he knew or whether he had other “ties” to the disgraced sex offender, nor has Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who visited Mr Epstein’s notorious island and was his neighbour in New York. Both deny any wrongdoing.
The evidence uncovered so far suggests that Mr Epstein's network has not fully been disclosed, nor the many victims' claims investigated. There are clearly a lot more stones to be uncovered. Ms Pozhidaeva herself had a relationship with Joshua Fink, the son of billionaire BlackRock founder and CEO Larry Fink, one of the most powerful figures in global finance, according to Important Stories.
In 2012, Mr Epstein introduced her to the billionaire Elon Musk and attempted to arrange meetings in Paris, promising the Mr Musk “a lot of fun” with her. American Attorney General Pam Bondi has resigned over the Epstein case and the American President’s wife has issued a bizarre statement in broken English denying that she was close to Mr Epstein.
But just like that…the story of what was going on with Mr Epstein and the dozens of young women he exploited and abused, and who did what, has been buried by the crisis in the Persian Gulf and the American and Israeli attacks on Israel.
If you think you are having a bad day at work, pity former Hungarian prime minister and friend of the Kremlin, Viktor Orbán, who has described how, “I felt pain… and emptiness. I am healing myself with work. I went through emotional rollercoaster,” following his landslide defeat at the polls eight days ago.
You can read here how Hungary's state oil company MOL became a pillar of Mr Orbán’s economic model, using the transit of Russian oil to fund the Fidesz party, and to pay dividends to a right wing think tank. MOL also owns 49 per cent of Croatian oil company INA, which occasionally drills offshore in the Adriatic Sea, alongside the 45 per cent of INA held by the Croatian Government. Indeed, the current chairman of MOL was accused and convicted in Croatia of orchestrating a €10 million (now US$11.5 million) bribe in 2009 to Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader in exchange for the sale of the controlling stake in INA.
"Drawing on practices reminiscent of Russia’s 1990s oligarchic capitalism, Budapest has transformed the oil corporation [MOL] into a vast conduit for channelling and legitimising Russian influence within the EU," reporters at Resurgam have noted. "At the core of this system lies a non-market mechanism: a political discount on Urals crude oil. This price differential effectively functions as a 'black fund' for the regime, channelling resources into loyal structures such as the MCC Foundation and shifting assets beyond effective state oversight…"
But just like that…Mr Orbán is out of power, and we can expect some changes to how MOL is run, from whence it sources its crude and how its dividends are distributed.