Category: West Africa

As the Islamist group Boko Haram intensifies attacks in northern Nigeria , former militants in the Niger River delta who once cut oil production by almost a third have become some of the government’s biggest supporters. Militant commanders like Government Ekpemupolo have gone from targeting Nigeria’s oil industry, riding around in speed boats with automatic weapons and explosives, to protecting it. He now runs the Global West Specialist Ltd. security company that has a $115 million contract with the National Maritime Administration and Safety Agency. Ekpemupolo is one of a group of former militants, including Ebikabowei Victor Ben and Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, who are prospering under the rule of President Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s first leader from the region that’s the heart of Africa ’s biggest oil industry. They form the backbone of support for Jonathan, 57, in the area as he seeks re-election in February, and have vowed to resist […]

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opinion The problem for Nigeria is that these refineries barely function; refining less than 24 per cent of their capacity if they work at all. They are aged and decrepit and in desperate need of maintenance. Vast sums have been spent on maintaining them but they still do not function although the contracting maintenance companies have done rather well out of these maintenance contracts. It defies belief but the Kaduna Refinery was designed to handle much heavier crude than is produced in Nigeria. For years, the refinery has actually imported large quantities of suitable paraffinic based crude oil from Venezuela, Kuwait, Oman or Saudi Arabia to be refined in Nigeria Periodically, as political pressures increased new refinery tenders were issued. The local Nigerian companies who won the tenders for this could not attract overseas firms willing to co-operate with them, nor have they been able to raise the capital […]

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Pastor Christian Lekoya Kpandei’s hand covered in oily mud, Bodo Creek, in 2011 (file photo). Photo: Amnesty International Abuja — The House of Representatives has directed Shell Nigerian Exploration Company (SNEPCo) to pay the sum of $3.6 billion or N604.832 billion for the damage caused by oil spill from its equipment failure almost four years ago in Bayelsa State The House Committee on Environment gave the directive during an investigative public hearing on Wednesday, citing the breakdown of an independent value analysis it adopted, which totalled N63.6 billion, payable for direct losses (irreversible damages) the community incurred. According to a breakdown of the damage, N103.192 billion is for loss of income, N85.785 billion is for water provision while N27.399,520,512 is for forestry and NTFP. For the indirect losses, SNEPCO is to pay N14.350 billion for health hazard; N8.089 million is for injurious affection while the sum of N302.416 billion […]

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Nigerian oil production up, with most exports headed to markets outside North America. (UPI/Shutterstock/James Jones Jr.) ABUJA, Nigeria, Nov. 24 (UPI) — The Nigerian oil export economy relies mainly on consumers outside North America, the state-controlled Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. said Monday. "Four regions, namely Europe, South America, Asia and Africa, remain the major destinations of Nigerian crude and condensate export," the company said. Nigerian crude oil exports to the United States peaked in 2007 and have since steadily decreased to zero since shale oil production increased. The state oil company said exports of 2.26 million barrels per day in August, the last full month for which data are available, were 12.4 percent higher than the previous month . Overall, oil production rose 6.8 percent in August. Nigeria is among the largest African members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. OPEC, in its market report for November, said […]

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The Federal Government has said it plans to cut subsidies on petroleum products by half next year after sharp falls in global crude prices, spurred a reversal of its 2015 budget downwards. President Goodluck Jonathan submitted the revised budget figures to lawmakers last week, proposing to spend 458.68 billion naira ($2.59 bln) on petrol subsidy in 2015, down from 971.14 billion naira presented for 2014. It also assumed further cuts to petrol subsidies in 2016 to 408.68 billion naira and 371.18 billion naira for 2017. The Minister of finance and Co-ordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has proposed lowering the assumed benchmark oil price for the 2015 budget to $73 per barrel from the $78 proposed in September, after global crude prices collapsed. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala told Reuters last week that declines in the price of oil, which has lost almost 30 percent since July, would impact the […]

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Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) has called on the Federal Government and the military to rise up to the task of ending the insurgency and wanton destruction of lives and properties in the country. The oil workers’ union also called on the military to live up to their expectations by duly performing their obligations of defending the country against any attack either internal or external. PENGASSAN, in a statement condemned the level of general insecurity, especially the killings of innocent citizens by the Boko Haram insurgents in the North Eastern part of the country. The body called on President Goodluck Jonathan to step up the political will to deal with the crisis. Condemning the bomb blast that killed 47 school children and injured 79 others in Potiskum, Yobe State recently, PENGASSAN President, Francis Johnson, said the federal government should use all the power within […]

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Nigeria is planning spending cutbacks next year as falling oil prices eat into the government’s revenue, Finance Minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said. The minister will propose to lower expenditure by 6 percent to 4.66 trillion naira ($27 billion) in the 2015 budget by tightening rules on foreign travel and raising taxes on private jets and luxury cars, Okonjo-Iweala told reporters yesterday in the capital, Abuja. Those plans are based on a benchmark oil price of $73 a barrel, down from $77.5 in this year’s budget, she said. The government of Africa ’s biggest oil producer, which is preparing to hold elections on Feb. 14, earns about 70 percent of its income from crude oil, the price of which has slumped to a four-year low this month. The naira weakened to a record low last week, prompting the central bank to run down reserves in a bid to defend the currency. […]

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Abuja–The Federal Government, yesterday, warned that Nigeria, will from this November, begin to feel the impact of the declining price of crude oil in the global market. Speaking at the Institute for International Finance’s 2014 Africa Financial Summit in Lagos, hosted by Access Bank Plc, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy disclosed that event unfolding over the last couple of weeks have cast a shadow over the global economy, especially Nigeria and other African countries. She reiterated the fact that commodity prices are declining globally in the last couple of days, with the Bonny Light, Nigeria’s reference crude, trading at about $83 per barrel. This, she said, is assuming a disturbing dimension, especially as crude oil export accounts for about 83 per cent of Nigeria’s total export, as well as the fact that the country has to grapple with falling quantity. She said, […]

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Shell responds to scathing report from Amnesty International on oil spills in the Niger Delta. (File/UPI/Brian Kersey) Responding to an Amnesty International report, a Shell spokesman said Friday the company aims to compensate all Nigerians "genuinely affected" by oil spills. Amnesty in a report published Thursday said there is "irrefutable evidence" that Shell Petroleum Co. of Nigeria underestimated the amount of oil spilled in the Niger Delta in 2008 . Around 11,000 villagers from the Bodo community in the oil-rich Niger Delta filed suit in a London court against Shell last year, saying oil spills in the region devastated the regional fisheries industry . "Amnesty International firmly believes Shell knew the Bodo data were wrong," Amnesty’s director for global issues Audrey Gaughran said in a statement. "If it did not it was scandalously negligent — we repeatedly gave them evidence showing they had dramatically underestimated the spills." Shell had […]

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