When the Nigeria Rural Electrification Programme was launched in 2005, the Federal Government aimed to connect about 1,500 communities to the national grid by 2007, and to achieve 85 percent electrification by 2010 (compared to 40 percent in 2005).

In keeping with the revised timeline for the privatisation of the successor companies created from the unbundling of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has released the final industry and transaction documents to the 152 potential investors interested in the privatisation exercise.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said that tension between Iran and the West is likely to keep oil prices high despite a dramatic improvement in world supply and a big build in stocks.

Royal Dutch Shell said it found two fresh onshore oil pipeline leaks in Nigeria’s Delta region last week, three days after the company declared force majeure on exports of the high grade Bonny Light crude due to outages caused by oil theft.

Contrary to speculations that Nigerian companies participation in the annual Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, in Houston Texas, US, is more of a jamboree than business development, Emval Holdings Limited, has said that participation in the conference has brought it vast business opportunities.

Rights group, the Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights, CDWR, has called on the Federal Government to make room for transparency and democracy in the management of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN.

The former Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Odein Ajumogobia, has said the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), when eventually passed into a law, will serve as the catalyst that the country’s oil and gas industry needs to revolutionise the sector.

…Tasks CBN, SEC on N52.2bn unclaimed dividends
Nigeria Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA) has called on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) to establish an Unclaimed Dividend Trust Fund as a means to addressing the problem of unclaimed dividends which presently estimated at N52.2 billion, even as it posited that legalizing illegal refineries would boost local supply capacity of petroleum products, reduce prices and create jobs.

The Federal Government has again, secretly indulged in the discretionary award of oil blocks in Nigeria, a development that contravenes global practice of open bidding and a negation of the Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, EITI, of which Nigeria is signatory.

The 2012 edition of the Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, ended in Houston, Texas, USA, last week with a record 89,400 attendees in its 30-year history.

French oil company, Total, has begun drilling two relief wells at a gas plant in Nigeria that was shut down last month because of a leak caused by a technical incident, it said on Sunday.

Power sector deregulation has been identified as one of the major means of attracting investors and new investments into Nigeria’s power sector.

The Nigerian Gas Association, NGA, has promised to use its learning programme to boost the development of home grown talents that will guarantee active participation of Nigeria’s gas sector without compromising international best practices.

THE Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers, NUPENG, has called on the Federal government to speed up the process of the promulgation of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, to save the nation’s oil and gas sector from total collapse.

Indigenes of Opuama in Warri North Local Government Area of Delta state, have protested their continued cut off from power from a Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC generator.