Category: West Africa

Shell unloads assets in Nigeria as part of a strategic review, one day after critical oil spill report from Amnesty International. UPI/Maryam Rahmanian Royal Dutch Shell said Friday it completed the sale of its stake in a Nigerian oil field for $737 million as part of a strategic review of onshore assets there. The company sold its 30 percent stake in oil mining lease 30 to Eroton Exploration & Production Co. Eroton took on an additional stake in the area from subsidiaries of Total and Eni. "This divestment is part of the strategic review of Shell Petroleum Development Co.’s onshore portfolio and is in line with the federal government of Nigeria’s aim of developing Nigerian companies in the country’s upstream oil and gas business," the Anglo-Dutch company said in a statement. The oil mining lease was producing an average 14,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day last year. Amnesty […]

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A man tries to separate crude oil from water in a boat at the Bodo waterways polluted by oil spills attributed to a Royal Dutch Shell Plc equipment failure, August 11, 2011. Photographer: Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images (Bloomberg) — Royal Dutch Shell Plc is making no progress curbing oil spills in Nigeria and Eni SpA’s operations in the West African country are out of control, according to Amnesty International. The two companies reported more than 550 spills in the southern oil-rich Niger River delta last year, compared with an average of 10 spills a year in Europe between 1971 and 2011, said Amnesty. “These figures are seriously alarming,” Audrey Gaughran, Amnesty’s global issues director, said in a statement on Thursday. “In any other country, this would be a national emergency. In Nigeria it appears to be standard operating procedure for the oil industry.” Nigeria produces about 2 […]

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Politics creating investment risk to Nigeria’s offshore oil potential, report from IHS finds. (UPI/Shutterstock/project1photography) The Independent National Electoral Commission said it plans to hold a nation-wide vote March 28, six weeks later than originally planned. Nigeria’s government postponed the vote in February, arguing the threat from militant group Boko Haram was too great to ensure safety at the polls. Nigeria is Africa’s largest oil producer. A report from IHS finds the future of the nation’s oil sector is at risk from the uncertain political future. Roderick Brice, the author of the report on Nigeria for the analytical group, said elections are a disruptive force in the oil-rich country. Regardless of who wins, investors will face an uncertain future. "That uncertainty has already constrained deepwater exploration and development," he said in a statement Monday. IHS forecasts crude oil production in Nigeria will drop from the 2 million barrels per day […]

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Nigerian stocks fell the most in over a month as political tension rises less than two weeks before a presidential election and as oil slumped to a six-year low.  The Continue Reading

editorial Frequent petrol shortages are not uncommon in the world’s 5th largest oil producer, but the sudden return of queues at service stations nationwide about a fortnight ago, in spite of the glut in world markets, jolted many Nigerians. The ugly sights of vehicles that snaked for kilometres out of filling stations were a reminder of the enduring fragility of the fuel distribution system in the country, and the instability in the petroleum industry generally. As often the case, it was payday for black marketers, who sold at between 150 naira and 250 naira per litre, against the official price of 85 naira per litre. As the shortage bit harder, the Petroleum Products Pricing and Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) announced that a billion litres of the commodity would be imported to bridge shortfalls in supply. As usual, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources announced that there was sufficient stock of petrol […]

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(Bloomberg) — Barclays Plc energy analyst Miswin Mahesh sees a “huge risk” of oil production in Nigeria being disrupted by political instability arising from elections scheduled for March 28. The vote is set to be the most closely contested since the end of military rule in 1999. President Goodluck Jonathan’s People’s Democratic Party and former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari’s All Progressives Congress are the leading contenders — each won 42 percent support in a survey of 2,400 adults polled by Afrobarometer in December in 33 of the nation’s 36 states and the federal capital territory. “We are not sure how it will play out on the political front,” Mahesh, based in London, said in a March 6 interview in Cape Town. “Nigeria will do whatever it takes to maintain its production. The risks are still there. There is a genuine risk that we might see some disruptions.” Nigeria’s daily […]

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LONDON: Nigeria is suffering from a gasoline shortage as falling oil prices have affected the country’s ability to import and distribute refined fuels. Coming just weeks before elections scheduled for March 28, the shortage could have a big impact on the campaign trail. In Abuja, the lines of cars waiting for gas are growing longer. Acute fuel shortages are gripping towns and cities across the country. Workers reliant on their cars are losing money fast – like taxi driver Bartholomew Ode Akpa. “I work at the airport as a car hire and now I’m supposed to be at the airport and there is no fuel for me to go and look for something to do,” he said. Nigeria is one of the world’s top producers of crude oil, and exports around 2 million barrels per day. But it doesn’t have the refinery capacity to meet fuel demand, so it […]

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Zoology student Samuel Pelumi works on his laptop outside his home alongside the Lagos Lagoon. In a four-day sweep through Nigeria early last year, Aberdeen Asset Management’s Kevin Daly detected trouble. Yes, the country was a rising African power and yes, it had become the world’s fastest-growing major economy, but things weren’t quite right. An Islamic insurgency was heating up in the north and there were early signs that a nasty presidential campaign was brewing. Then financial disaster struck. Oil, the lifeblood of the country, collapsed in a breath-taking free fall. Daly had seen enough. By November, he had sold all of his Nigerian government bonds. Back in Lagos again last month for a fresh look, Daly found a country ravaged by crisis from all sides: the bloody clashes with Boko Haram insurgents had intensified; the violence had spurred authorities to postpone elections the president was in danger of […]

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A man fills in a car at a fuel station (file photo). Photo: Shell The Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said on Wednesday that the Federal Government had agreed to pay 30 billion dollars foreign exchange differentials owed to oil marketers. Ms. Okonjo-Iweala made this known on Wednesday in Abuja while briefing journalists after a meeting with the Central Bank, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, major oil markers and depot owners. "The Federal Government has addressed all contentious issues with the marketers, such as the issue of the foreign exchange rate differentials. "The Federal Government has agreed to pay the 30 billion dollars exchange rate differentials owed the marketers over the last couple of months. "It is already in the process of offsetting the N185 billion debts owed the marketers with the issuance of the Sovereign Debt Note (SDN)," she said. Ms. Okonjo-Iweala added that the Federal Government had […]

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Abuja — THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has assured Nigerians that the queues at filling stations across the country will disappear before the end of this week. Group Executive Director Commercial and Investment, Aisha Abdulrahman, who stated this Tuesay in Abuja when the Supervising Minister of Information, Chief Edem Duke led a team of reporters for on-the-spot assessment of the situation in the filling stations, said the glitch that disrupted fuel supply in the last few days had been addressed, adding that the NNPC now had adequate stock that could last between twenty and thirty days. Abdulrahman encouraged filling stations to complement NNPC retail outlets by selling petrol for 24 hours in order to clear the fuel queues across the country. She discouraged speculation, panic buying and hoarding because the NNPC had flooded the country with petroleum products. In his remarks, the Supervising Minister of Information, Chief Edem […]

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