Albert J. Stanley, former head of KBR, has pleaded guilty to charges of bribing Nigerian officials in order to secure business contracts in the African country.

On Wednesday, Mr. Stanley entered into a plea agreement with the United States District Court, Houston. Under the agreement, he admitted before the court that he had conspired to offer $182 million in bribes to officials in return for a $6 billion contract to set up a liquefied natural gas complex in Nigeria.

Mr. Stanley admitted that he had authorized the hiring of two consulting companies to process talks with Nigerian officials. Of these, he had paid $132 million to one consulting company and more than $50 million to the other. Other than this, he also pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks worth $10.8 million from the consulting companies. Under the plea agreement, Mr. Stanley could be jailed for seven years and forced to pay $10.8 million in restitution.

Till December 2003, Albert J. Stanley headed KBR, one of the biggest engineering and construction subsidiaries of Halliburton. However the parent company dismissed him in 2004 once his involvement in the kickback scheme surface and he was found to have enriched himself by as much as $5 million. Last year, KBR was spun off from Halliburton.