We Thought You Should Know This: The Sumbana oil family’s prestigious partners

The Sumbana family’s new oil services has won over influential investors, including political figures, in France and the United Kingdom.

As Africa Energy Intelligence reported in its last issue (AEI 752), the influential Sumbana family in Mozambique recently incorporated a new oil services company, Nimran Oil and Gas Services in Maputo through its Final Holdings group. However, the Sumbana family isn’t alone in owning this new company. Its partners are the Sudanese businessman Ahmed Nimeri (25%), and a company incorporated in London in 2012,Ogmo Investment (25%).

Nimeri is also the boss of the oil services concern Nimran Energy headquartered in Khartoum, which he founded in 2009. He previously worked for the oil company Ram Energy, a subsidiary of High-Tech Group which is closely allied with Sudanese president Omar Al Bechir. In 2007 Ram Energy was added to the list of Sudanese companies targeted by American sanctions.

For its part, Ogmo Investment is 45% owned by the firm Midcost Belize which is itself an affiliate of the London-registered firm Midcost Ltd.

A number of influential figures in African business circles gravitate around Midcost (or did so). Among them is a former director, Olga Maitland, who once sat in the House of Commons as a Conservative Party MP (1992-1997) and has been president of theAlgeria British Business Council (ABBC) for over a decade. Since 2014 she has runSouth Sudan BC Ltd which offers its expertise to companies anxious to do business with Juba (see The Indian Ocean Newsletter, Indigo Publications)

One of Midcost’s current directors, who was named in October, 2014, is former French interior minister Claude Gueant, who served under Nicolas Sarkozy. Gueant is highly involved in African business dealings. Now a lawyer, he has close ties with a number of governments and lobbies, mainly in West Africa, on behalf of French companies likeMaurel & Prom or Spallian (data bases). His son-in-law, Jean-Charles Charki, runs an oil consulting outfit named Iota (AEI 694).