Friedhelm Eronat

Friedhelm Eronat (born 1953 in Prien (Germany), the son of Anna and Josef Eronat, is a Geneva-based millionaire business leader mainly involved in oil trading, exploration and production. Eronat is one of the world's most successful oil dealmakers. His estimated wealth is over $100m (£55m), built on deals in places such as Nigeria, Russia and Kazakhstan. [http://adriangatton.com/]

Eronat studied production management and oil engineering at Nicholls State University in Louisiana, graduating in early 1970s. He then entered the international oil business.

In autumn 1997, Jordanian businessman Farhat Tabbah filed a suit in London against Eronat and two American businessmen (all working for Mobil at the time), accusing them of money laundering and bribing President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev with millions of dollars in order to gain access to the Tengiz oil field, in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/content?030414fr_archive01] .All allegations by Farhat Tabbah were dismissed by the High Court in London and Farhat Tabbah was ordered to pay damages and all legal expenses.

In 2003 Friedhelm Eronat renounced US citizenship and became a British citizen.

A Channel 4 investigative report in 2005 [http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/world/briton%20involved%20in%20sudan%20oil%20drill/108405] asserts that Eronat founded the Cliveden Group, which in 2003 established a large stake in a consortium which acquired exploration rights in Darfur from the Sudanese Government. The website for Advanced Petroleum Company of Sudan lists Cliveden Group as one of its principal shareholders [http://www.apco-sd.com/html/cliveden.htm] as of May 2006 [http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.apco-sd.com/html/cliveden.htm] .