It takes a lot to be an inventor. It takes a lot more to manage innovations and innovators. From Nigeria’s bitter and unfortunate civil war, we were only able to keep some of the relics at the Umuahia war museum. Nigeria could not seek to harness the skills and resources of the team that was behind the innovations in the civil war for technological development. The Biafran enclave survived on various petroleum products that were not imported for 30 months before the collapse. For almost 30 years now Nigeria has been surviving on imported petroleum products and now shopping for downstream investors in roadshows across the world. The United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Japan, other G7 members and indeed other Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD countries are out of our refining palaver but may be interested in supplying Nigeria petroleum products. We are now left with Russia, China, India, Saudi Arabia and some others in the Organisation for the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC and OPEC+ for refining talks.

President Muhammadu Buhari last Monday in far away the United Kingdom gave accent to the long-awaited Deep Offshore and Inland Basin Production Sharing Contract Act 2004 (Amendment) Bill, 2019.

Russia is back into the fray for a second scramble for Africa’s economic soul. The motive is to accelerate the gains of superpower status it inherited from the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR that dismembered its alliance in 1991. It participated in the 1884/85 partition of Africa 134 years ago, but did not benefit because it barely had a colony. Russia is immensely endowed with natural resources; a country with the largest land mass in the world. Last week, the Russians met with a congregation of 54-member African Union leaders including 43 heads of state, in the southern city of Sochi from 23 to 24 October, 2019. The Russia-Africa Economic Forum was co-hosted by Russian President Putin and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. The Sochi Summit appears to be very purposeful for the African ‘beautiful brides’ as the Russian leaders showcased concrete guides and plans to find African solutions to various African problems; from armaments, infrastructure, nuclear energy, to oil and gas.

Russia is back into the fray for a second scramble for Africa’s economic soul. The motive is to accelerate the gains of superpower status it inherited from the defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, USSR that dismembered its alliance in 1991

President John Fitzgerald Kennedy, JFK, one of the youngest to be elected president of the United States at 43, in a quote said that: “The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” The quote tells us that we should fix what is broken as soon as possible.

A bitter and prolonged disagreement between host communities in the island Kingdom of Kula and Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, operators of the Oil Mining Licence, OML 25 has been amicably resolved  by the Group Managing Director, GMD of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari.

A bitter and prolonged disagreement between host communities in the island Kingdom of Kula and Shell Petroleum Development Company, SPDC, operators of the Oil Mining Licence, OML 25 has been amicably resolved  by the Group Managing Director, GMD of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari. The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva and Kyari, in a stakeholders visit to the host communities of OML 25 facilities in Kula Kingdom of Asari-Toru Local Government of Rivers State, assured the communities and their leaders that the Federal Government was keen on attracting investments to the area and also create jobs for the teeming youths. Highlights of the occasion included the commissioning of NNPC/Belema Joint Venture Portable Water Project as well as the groundbreaking of the 85km Kula-Degema-Port Harcourt Expressway that had been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari. The Managing Director of Shell, Osagie Okunbor said Shell had paid over N300 million in to the Joint MOU account to restart community efforts it had not done because of the dispute.

By Michael Eboh The northern part of Nigeria has joined the league of oil-producing regions, as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Friday, announced that it has discovered crude oil, gas and condensates in the Kolmani River region at the border community between Bauchi and Gombe states. In a statement in Abuja, the NNPC, disclosed […]

The world’s leaders this week converged on the General Assembly Hall of the United Nations headquarters at the Manhattan, New York for the 74th session of the United Nations General Assembly, UNGA74. Climate change that hitherto appeared latent became vociferous with youths led by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg became potentates causing about four million people around the world to take part in the biggest demonstration ever in history over global warming last week Friday.

Global citizens are up in protest that oil is contributing to global warming. Global warming is pushing the ice farther north. Manmade climate change is causing the Arctic to grow warmer twice as fast as the rest of the planet. Ices are melting fast and pulling back with no sign of returning to its frozen past. And who cares?  

Oil has useful properties known since ancient times. On August 27, 1859, oil was for the first time, produced with a fixed flow rate at the Drake Well in Northwest Pennsylvania, USA.

In William Shakespeare’s hilarious love play: A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Act 3 Scene 2, fictional character  Hermia was described as  “Though she is little, she is fierce!” One may not go into details of the characterization of Hermia who might be small in size or metaphorically weaker or smaller, but she is strong and fierce. This may essentially be about a tiny company, against a goliath of the oil industry. Process & Industrial Developments Ltd., P&ID won a London court ruling that may force Nigeria, to pay it about US$9 billion, about 20 per cent of Nigeria’s foreign reserve. On Friday last week, a London Commercial Court presided over by Justice Christopher Butcher, gave a ruling to convert an arbitration award to a legal judgment that would allow P&ID make applications to seize Nigerian international commercial assets. The country’s solicitor general Dayo Apata in response said that the Nigerian government would appeal the decision.

Since the crude oil price peaked in April the market has become bearish losing over 20 percent from the US$70 mark it got to. Last week the China-United States trade war which effect is slowing global economy traded down oil with the global benchmark ICE Brent settling for US$57.10 (-3.12 percent), while the United States benchmark, West Texas Intermediate traded at US$51.66 (-3.67 percent) below the US$60 mark.

Britain has joined the United States-led international maritime security mission in the Persian Gulf to protect vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz.

Britain has joined the United States-led international maritime security mission in the Persian Gulf to protect vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz. Heightened tensions between the United States and Iran following attacks on tankers in the Persian Gulf would have made the United States to call for a coalition of allies to protect ships passing through the Persian Gulf. Last month, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seized a British flagged tanker, Stena Impero, near the Strait of Hormuz for alleged marine violations. It was a matter of tit-for-tat for the Iranians who retaliated two weeks after Britain seized an Iran-flagged oil tanker, the Grace 1,  off the coast of Gibraltar suspected of transporting crude oil to Syria in contravention of European Union sanctions.