A Nigerian High Court in Abuja has ordered that former Minister for Power, Saleh Mamman, be remanded in Kuje Prison in Abuja, pending the consideration of his bail application.
The court presided over by Justice James Omotosho, issued the order on Thursday, July 11, after Mamman was arraigned on a 12-count charge bordering on money laundering.
The ex-Power Minister pleaded not guilty to the charge brought against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), following which the prosecuting lawyer, Olumide Fusika (SAN), sought a date for the commencement of trial.
Lawyer to the defendant, Femi Ate (SAN), said he filed a bail application shortly before the court resumed sitting.
Although Fusika admitted to being served with the bail application at about 12:30 pm, Justice Omotosho noted that the application was not yet in the court’s file.
In reaction, Ate prayed to be allowed to return the next day to argue the bail application, which request Fusika did not oppose.
The judge, then, adjourned till Friday, July 12, for the hearing of the bail application and ordered that the defendant be remanded in Kuje Correctional Centre.
The defendant, who his lawyer, said is ill, looked dejected while stepping off the dock, shortly after the judge’s pronouncement.
A report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) indicated that the former minister collapsed outside the courtroom before the case was called.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Kenyan President William Samoei Ruto has dissolved with “immediate effect” all his Ministers and the Attorney-General, following the recent deadly protests that led to the withdrawal of an unpopular tax bill.
The Ministers include Cabinet Secretary for Energy, David Chirchir.
Ruto said the move came after “reflection, listening to Kenyans and after holistic appraisal of my cabinet.”
He has said he would now consult widely to set up a broad-based government.
The dissolution of his cabinet does not affect the Deputy President, who can’t legally be fired, and the Prime Cabinet Secretary who is also the Foreign Affairs Minister.
Human Rights groups say since the protests against a controversial finance bill began two weeks ago, thirty-nine people have been killed by security forces.
President William Ruto has since dropped the proposed tax increases, but the demonstrations have morphed into calls for him to resign and anger over police brutality in the most serious crisis of his presidency.
Cars were seen burning amid chaotic scenes in Mombasa as protesters clashed with police.
Many Kenyans are watching to see those who would be appointed to form the next cabinet.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Azerbaijan raised its natural gas exports to Europe by 12% year-over-year in the first half of 2024, sending 6.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) of its gas to European customers, Azerbaijan’s Minister of Energy, Parviz Shahbazov, said in a post on X on Thursday.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the severely diminished Russian pipeline gas supply to Europe, Azerbaijan has emerged as one alternative source for the EU to get more non-Russian gas.
In January to June, 6.4 bcm of Azerbaijan’s gas was exported to Europe, accounting for 51% of all Azeri gas exports, according to Azerbaijan’s energy ministry data.
Exports to Turkey, at 5 bcm, represented 39% of the country’s gas sales abroad, and the exports to Georgia of 1.3 bcm made up the remaining 10%.
Total Azeri natural gas sales abroad rose by about 6% in January to June 2024 compared to the same period last year, the minister said.
The Absheron gas and condensate field, which TotalEnergies and its joint venture partner SOCAR started up in July 2023, produced more than 1.5 bcm of gas during a year for the early production scheme (EPS) phase.
“The plans of developing the Absheron field in stages and increasing the annual production from 1.5 bcm to 6 bcm are significant contributions to the energy security of our country, as well as of our regional and European partners,” Shahbazov said.
Before the war in Ukraine, Russia supplied around one-third of all the gas to Europe. Currently, Europe’s single biggest source of pipeline gas is Norway, which not an EU member state, but a staunch ally of the bloc and a founding member of NATO.
Last year, Gazprom’s pipeline gas exports to Europe slumped by 55.6% compared to 2022.
As a result, Gazprom booked its first annual net loss in 23 years, signaling a significant shift in financial performance attributed to dwindling gas shipments to Europe and pricing pressures.
Source: Oilprice.com
The Attorney General of Ghana is trying desperately to spin serious embarrassment to the Republic of Ghana in an international tribunal using all the tools in his propaganda toolkit.
On 16th August 2021, two investors in Ghana’s petroleum sector, Eni (an Italian multinational) and Vitol (a Swiss multinational) filed notice under the UNCITRAL rules of its intention to pursue international arbitration in response to directives issued to it by the government of Ghana that it felt breached its petroleum agreement with the country.
Eni-Vitol had come to the conclusion that the political context in which these directives were issued made it impossible for it to obtain fair hearing and justice in the domestic jurisdiction.
The origin of the controversy
The government of Ghana had ordered it to merge its oil field, which had been successfully producing oil for a number of years, after investments exceeding $6 billion, with an oil block next door that has never produced oil and seen in total roughly $100 million of investments.
Furthermore, the government wanted Eni-Vitol to also hand over roughly 55% of the combined entity to the owner of the said oil block next door.
Ghana’s domestic laws allow the government to do this. However, petroleum exploration and production constitute an international domain in which certain global business and technical logics operate and have operated for many decades.
Whilst the Ghanaian courts have been focused purely on what the law allowed the government to do, and were inclined to rely on the curious technical testimony of the country’s national oil company (GNPC), the truth of the matter is that there are international standards in these matters and any investor coming into any country to invest billions of dollars will ensure that they also have the protection of international law and technical regimes.
Given the sheer amount of money they stood to lose (reckoned in billions of dollars), it came as no surprise when Eni-Vitol decided to take their case internationally.
We have discussed the issues at length elsewhere
In a previous essay on this site, I have chronicled carefully the history of the controversy in significant detail.
In another essay I laid out the basis of my argument that GNPC’s technical testimony in this instance was procured by political pressure as it simply didn’t hold water.
As the reader would no doubt notice from these essays, civil society organisations (CSOs) in Ghana engaged in the petroleum sector, especially IMANI and ACEP, have exhaustively examined the matters in the controversy and, with deep patriotic concern, warned the government that its actions in the attempted forced “unitisation” of the two offshore petroleum sitesare completely against the national interest.
In this short essay, we shall show why the tribunal’s final decision given this week, and the consequences of the unjustified “forced unitisation” directives, are all highly embarrassing for Ghana and completely detrimental to the country’s reputation and economic position.
The case against the government of Ghana
When Eni-Vitol filed its arbitration notice, the government of Ghana initially didn’t even bother to submit a detailed response.
Eni-Vitol nonetheless proceeded to present their joint statement of claim. At the heart of their case is the simple fact that Ghana is trying to force them to merge a highly valuable, and proven, oil field with another one that has not yet been properly assessed, to international standards, in order to determine if there is even any oil in place.
In the circumstances, such an attempt amounts to a pure ruse to seize a large part of a highly lucrative asset and hand it over to another business without any sensible foundation. International law frowns on unjust expropriation of foreign-owned assets under different guises.
If the government was genuinely interested in merging the fields purely because it wishes to improve efficiency, it would first focus on ensuring that the other business owning the “greenfield” block undertakes the proper technical investigations to confirm if indeed there is oil on that block, and what quantity exactly. This is at the heart of the whole matter.
In fact, carefully analysed from that perspective, Ghana itself STOOD TO LOSE if a merger was forced between a lucrative and fertile oil block and a potentially infertile and valueless one since the merger will affect Ghana’s own holdings in both blocks, which were not uniform at the time of the proposed merger.
In my earlier essay, referenced above, I lay out the various scenarios in which both Eni-Vitol and Ghana would lose massive amounts of money if the unitisation proceeded.
The only beneficiary would have been the owner of the block next door, the optimistically named “Afina field”.
The question that has never been properly addressed is why the government of Ghana was willing to go to such lengths to benefit the Afina owners, even to the detriment of its own economic position and international reputation.
In light of its position on the matter, what specifically did Eni-Vitol want the international tribunal to do for them? Below are the reliefs they were seeking, produced in full.
A careful reading of the reliefs should show that the bulk of Eni-Vitol’s expectations are in the nature of a declaration that the government’s directives for forced unitisation are unlawful and unjustifiable and should not proceed in the manner the government had sought to bring them about. That really is it.
The tribunal, even per the Attorney General’s own atrociously uncandid summary, has declared the government of Ghana’s attempt and approach at forced unitisation to be in breach of its petroleum agreement with Eni-Vitol and therefore unlawful and unjustified. Simple!
The government’s attempt at defending its actions
What was the government’s principal defense at the tribunal and how does it square with how the Attorney General is attempting to spin the outcomes of the proceedings?
The government’s super-expensive international lawyers summed up its case in the paragraph below found in the opening of its statement of defense. (“Claimants” in the text extract refers to Eni-Vitol.)
Government of Ghana’s primary aim in paying for these expensive lawyers to fight its baseless cause at arbitration was to get the tribunal to agree with its approach to the forced unitisation.
The government knew that its case was not in the national interest
The Ghanaian government did not only want the tribunal to agree with its inherently disordered and self-detrimental approach to the merger, which would have damaged the interests of its own citizens, they also wanted the tribunal to find the investors guilty of breaching their agreement with Ghana by not lying down and rolling over immediately they were asked to hand over a juicy chunk of their asset to another business.
The true mindset of the government’s agents in this matter, especially the Attorney General who instructed these lawyers, is exposed by paragraph 49 of the government’s statement of defense.
What that paragraph simply says is that in the end even if the merger leads to losses, Ghana is the ultimate bearer of those losses and so why is Eni-Vitol sweating? Such a deeply unpatriotic and reckless argument to make!
The government, egged on by the Attorney General, believes that it can proceed with technically reckless actions in Ghana’s petroleum sector, actions that will impose losses on the citizens of the country, with no consequence at all. What it is essentially saying here to investors is that, “why are you crying more than the bereaved? We are willing to bear the losses.”
In fact, the government spends the overwhelming proportion of its defense arguing against “commerciality” as an important logic in any regulatory directive that affects the economic structure of a petroleum transaction in which Ghana is involved.
It attempts, in breathtaking elaborateness, to make the case that even if the Afina block does not have any oil, it is fine to merge it with the oil producing Sankofa – Gye Nyame field (the one in which Eni-Vitol have majority interest) even though the inevitable result will be the dilution of economic returns for both Ghana and Eni-Vitol, and even if the only one who stands to benefit is the third-party private business next door.
The disorganised logic of the government’s case
Perhaps, in a belated recognition that their longwinded arguments making the case that commercial logic is irrelevant and all that matters is the discretion of government ministers, the government’s expensive lawyers began to moderate their tone somewhat when it came to defending the decision of the government to award 54.5% of the merged field to the private owner of the next-door Afina block.
What they are saying here, in essence, is that the precise allocation of acreage in the combined block is still in the works.
The illogicality of that argument is inherent in fact that any such decision has to be based on knowledge of how much oil is in the separate blocks.
Without knowing how much oil each party is in essence “bringing to the combined table”, there is no technically sound way to divvy up the combined block.
Since determining “commerciality” is how you confirm that the owner of the non-producing oil block is bringing anything to the table at all, the hollowness of this belated concession about the exact split of the combined field becomes crystal clear, laid side by side with the claim that commerciality is an irrelevant factor.
After all this turning and twisting, how did the government want the tribunal to rule? Ghana’s counter-claims offer a good view.
Ghana wanted the tribunal to punish Eni-Vitol
The government also wanted damages. Yes, it wanted to be paid by the investors for the pleasure of being robbed of their petroleum assets.
After these brazen demands, the government proceeded to list its requested reliefs.The government failed to secure any of its principal reliefs
The judges at the tribunal must have had a good laugh. But deep down they were not amused.
The government’s punitive claims against Eni-Vitol were totally dismissed. By even the twisted accounts of the Attorney General, it is clear that the tribunal did not so much look at them twice.
Whilst the Attorney General is celebrating the decision of the tribunal not to award large damages against Ghana, and its instructions for Ghana to only pay half of the arbitration costs, the truth is that the government’s attempt to get the tribunal to sympathise with its positions was wholly unsuccessful.
Eni-Vitol on the other hand got what they mostly set out to achieve: a ruling by an international tribunal that the government’s conduct is unlawful, on the basis of international standards and a more expansive reading of the country’s own laws.
The tribunal ruled in Ghana’s interest
In the end, though, especially for us in civil society, what matters is that the citizens understand clearly that the international tribunal was on their side and their government was acting in ways that would have considerably damaged their interests.
Ghana had to issue sovereign guarantees and tap the World Bank’s guarantee facility in order to get the Eni-Vitol field operational.
Extract from a Ghanaian parliamentary briefing on the Sankofa – Gye Nyame project (“Eni-Vitol field”)
The Eni-Vitol field is now the major supplier of gas for the country’s power plants. Ghana obtains significant revenues from its equity stake in the field.
Forcing this lucrative project into a poorly thought through merger with an unproven, greenfield, block would have caused massive disruption, undermined the commercial viability of the whole enterprise, and therefore ultimately eroded the benefits of the producing and proven asset to the people of Ghana.
It is very likely that the Eni-Vitol would have stopped gas production and plunged Ghana into dumsor should the situation had persisted down the path it was on.
Ghana has already suffered because of the government’s actions
Already, the needless controversy over the forced unitisation has cost Ghana dearly. The development of major oil discoveries such as Eban and Akoma have stalled.
There is evidence that some major international oil companies have been looking askance at the country since the government began this ill-fated expropriation agenda.
Ghana hasn’t brought a new oil field onstream for years (Jubilee South-East doesn’t really count as it is merely the extension of an existing field).
Oil output and state revenues from petroleum have been declining steadily and steeply.
Someone must be held accountable
The Attorney General’s conduct in failing to properly advise the country, in promoting a baseless position in an international forum, in opting to engage hyper-expensive lawyers costing this country millions of dollars, and in the end failing to secure any of the principal reliefs sought by Ghana is atrociously bad on its own.
Seeking to spin such a disastrous outcome as a victory is simply disreputable and ought not to pass without strong words from civil society and the citizenry.
As a starting point, citizens and civil society activists should demand complete transparency in respect of all monies paid to the likes of Foley Hoag.
We are also hearing that White & Case, which partners a politically exposed local law firm, had a role to play at some point. If true, how much did they earn?
Were these expensive legal fees to luxury law firms a factor in the government’s doggedness to pursue a matter completely in conflict with the public and national interest? In addition to the strong and inexplicable urge to divert public and paid-up investor stakes in Sankofa – Gye Nyame to a private business?
What a shame!
Source: Bright Simons
Kaduna Electric Distribution Company in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has announced a significant leap in the company’s market remittance from 13% to 46% in the last six months.
The Managing Director of KEDCo Dr. Umar Abubakar Hashidu revealed this on Tuesday while briefing the Minister for Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu who was on a working visit to Kaduna state.
He stated that the interim management under his leadership has also reduced the ATC&C Losses of the Company by 7% within the period under review, while at the same time improving the monthly revenue and regulatory compliance rating of the company significantly.
The administrator and chief executive officer of Kaduna Electric stated that the company is being repositioned to improve both the operational efficiency and its commercial performance.
He said the biggest challenge facing the is vandalism and energy theft.
He acknowledged what he called “the wonderful support and cooperation,” the management has been receiving from both the Board and other stakeholders.
In his response, the Minister for Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, expressed satisfaction with the performance of the interim management of the company since their inauguration.
“As a caretaker management, the ministry is happy with your performance so far, we are honestly not disappointed”, he said.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The High Court has dismissed an appeal by Kenya Power challenging a decision by a magistrate directing it to pay a warehousing company Sh930,000 after finding it responsible for a fire incident.
Justice David Majanja ruled that he agreed with the magistrate’s court that, on a balance of probability, Kenya Power’s negligence caused an electric surge at Pwani Warehousing Limited.
“Much as the cause of the fire originated in the internal wiring, I doubt the power surge would have reached the internal wiring if the cutout fuses to the godown were in place.
”The court also ruled that it did not think it was the responsibility of Pwani Warehousing Ltd to ensure that the cutout fuses from the main supply line to the godown remained connected at all times.
“It was not proved that it was out of the negligence of the respondent that the cutout fuses were dismantled to isolate the godown,” ruled Justice Majanja.
In its appeal, Kenya Power had wanted the High Court to determine whether the magistrate’s court misapprehended the evidence and arrived at the wrong conclusion and also whether it proceeded on wrong principles and came to an erroneous decision.
Justice Majanja noted that a report by the chief fire officer in Mombasa County indicated that the cutout fuses had been dismantled to isolate supply in the godown.
“This would explain why neighbouring areas on the same supply line would not be affected by a power surge from the main supply line,” said Justice Majanja.
At the magistrate’s court, Pwani Warehousing Limited had said that on June 12, 2018, a fire broke out at a warehouse that it had leased to Portside Freight Terminals.
The company told the court that security guards on duty put out a distress call to the fire department of the county government of Mombasa who responded with alacrity and with the help of the port fire brigade, extinguished it.
The court further heard that the chief fire officer at the county government of Mombasa wrote a report covering the fire incident which attributed the cause of the fire to an electrical short circuit on electrical wiring in the internal distribution caused by excess power.
Kenya Power had opposed the case because it claimed that the fire was caused by a short circuit in the company’s internal distribution system hence it was beyond its jurisdiction.
The electricity distributor argued that it could only be held responsible for fires caused due to faults on the main power line.
Source: Business Daily Africa
Ghana’s petroleum downstream, National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has donated a laboratory equipment to the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) to facilitate pharmaceutical, biological and forensic analysis.
The Chief Executive of the NPA, Dr.Mustapha Abdul- Hamid, said the gesture by the Authority was in to protect public health and wellbeing as well as ensure quality of petroleum products in the country.
The instrument procured with the support of the NPA through Authentix will be used at the organic chemistry laboratory of the National Nuclear Research Institute (NNRI) of GAEC and avail to all laboratory analysts the opportunity to work with a user-friendly, high output, sensitive instrument with multiple detectors that can handle various products types thus improving timelines of analysis of pharmaceuticals, forensic, biological cal, industrial and other regulated products.
It will also facilitate the ability of all analysts to detect and pronounce on substandard and falsified medical products as well as unwholesome foods in a collective effort to protect public health.
Addressing the gathering at the commissioning of the Agilent Gas Chromatography Equipment with Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) at the GAEC premises, the NPA Boss, Dr. Abdul-Hamid indicated that his outfit would continue to support research activities to help protect public health and ensure the quality of not just petroleum product but also, support research institutions in all facet to help protect public lives and maintain a conducive and healthy environment for all .
The event, he said, demonstrated the utility of corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative by the NPA aimed at skill and knowledge development and importantly to provide stronger relationship between industry and research -based institution for the promotion of cutting-edge research.
He used the opportunity to commend the Quality Assurance Directorate of the NPA for their hard work in keeping the quality of the petroleum product in Ghana.
The Board Chairman of GAEC, Dr. Kwaku Aning, expressed appreciation to the NPA and Authentix for this kind gesture and expressed optimism for the future of this initiative.
He said, the new equipment would greatly enhance the institute and the commission’s ability to perform timely and accurate biological, environmental amd chemical residue analysis on a wide range of samples.
He further hinted that the Environmental Resources Center (ERRC) at the National Nuclear Research Institute (NNRI) are currently in the process of acquiring ISO/IEC 17025:2005 Labrador accreditation for the Organic Child Laboratory.
This he believes when acquired, would contribute to the modernization of the organic chemistry Laboratory with the donated GC-MS.
On his part, the Director General of GAEC, Prof. Samuel Boakye Dampare, assured GAEC’s commitment to using the research and development activities to further impact the mining and minerals exploration, human health and medicine, food and agriculture, petrochemical, and other sectors.
He also called for more support from the NPA in related equipment like a Fourier Transform Infra -red (FYIR) set up to make the laboratory fully functional.
The NP team included the Director of the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) Mr. Jacob Amoah who also doubles as a Board Member of GAEC committee that managed the GC-MS project.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Kenya’s Rural Electrification and Renewable Energy Corporation (REREC) is seeking approval of KSh14.5 billion in the current financial year to facilitate power connections in rural areas.
If approved, the fund will enable the corporation to connect 690,000 households in rural areas with electricity.
Energy Principal Secretary Alex Wachira observed on Saturday that power connections in rural areas are currently at about 75 percent, and with approval of the funds, REREC will strive to increase the connections to more than 78 per cent by the closure of the financial year.
Wachira, who spoke at Mugira village in Muragua constituency when he launched a power project, said increased electricity connections, especially in rural areas, will spur economic growth and create more employment opportunities.
According to a report by Kenya News Agency, REREC is targeting to attain 100 per cent power connection in rural Kenya by 2030, an initiative that will require more than Sh42 billion.
“With the ongoing power connection projects in various rural parts, we target to attain 78 per cent by the close of this financial year, but this will be realised if the amount we need is approved by the National Treasury.
“The increase in power connections in rural areas is aimed at boosting economic growth and creating employment since some projects and income generating initiatives depend on electricity supply, “he added during an occasion he co-hosted with Maragua MP Mary Waithera.
The PS further noted that theft of transformers and vandalization of power infrastructure that had cost the Energy Ministry Sh2 billion every year has gone down, calling on residents to be vigilant against anyone who is causing damage to the power infrastructure.
“As a country, we witnessed increased vandalism of power infrastructure, especially last year and early this year.
“With collaboration with key stakeholders, the crime has gone down, and we are working to stop and end the vandalism completely.
“Theft of transformers and cables, among other equipment, has caused the Kenya Power Company to incur huge losses per year. We appeal to residents to help us stop this crime,” added Wachira.
At Maragua constituency, Wachira launched a Sh10 million power connection project that will see 130 homes connected within Makuyu ward.
He pointed out that Murang’a County, since last financial year, has benefited from a power connection project worth Sh597 million that has seen over 15,000 homesteads access electrical power.
Maragua MP, on her part, lauded the government’s initiative to increase power connections in rural areas of the country, saying that in her constituency, the three villages of Mugira, Mathingira, and Kanderendu have already been connected to electricity.
She observed that Maragua is one of the areas that are in dire need of power connections, having 55 per cent power connections currently.
Residents of Mugira village narrated how they used lumps to light their houses at night, especially when their children were doing homework from school.
They added that insecurity in the area will drop with the residents promising to open up businesses that use power as a source of energy.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Saudi Arabia raised a total of $12.35 billion from selling more shares in Aramco, after increasing the offering in the world’s most valuable oil company, a document seen by Reuters showed.
The success of the share sale and additional proceeds will help further fuel Saudi Arabia’s ambitions to invest in new industries and wean its economy away from oil under its Vision 2030 plan.
The kingdom raised an additional $1 billion after exercising a so-called greenshoe option, according to the document, which allows banks to place more stock when there is demand from investors.
The government last month sold a 0.64% stake, or about 1.545 billion shares, in Aramco at 27.25 riyals ($7.27) a share.
Another 154.5 million shares were placed via Merrill Lynch, which was acting as a stabilization manager on the deal.
Aramco’s shares have risen 3.3 percent since the offering last month, trading at 28.15 riyals.
In the document, published late on Tuesday, Merrill Lynch said it exercised the over-allotment option and that the month-long stabilization period ended with no such transactions undertaken.
Source: Reuters
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited says fuel stations are to operate longer hours for the supply and distribution of petrol, calling on fuel stations to aid availability given the current tight situation.
The company said the turnaround period of Premium Motor Spirit trucking is also elongated to ease the situation being witnessed.
The Executive Vice President, Downstream, NNPC Ltd, Dapo Segun, said this on Monday in Abuja during a joint inspection of stations by the firm and the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority officials.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the NNPC and the NMDPRA embarked on a joint monitoring of the supply and distribution of fuel stations in the Federal Capital Territory and across the country to ensure that queues disappear.
NNPC had said that fuel queues in the FCT and parts of the country were a result of disruption of ship-to-ship transfer of fuel between Mother Vessels and Daughter Vessels resulting from recent thunderstorms.
It said adverse weather conditions; including rainstorms and lightning, had also affected berthing at jetties, truck load-outs, and transportation of products to filling stations, disrupting station supply logistics.
Speaking during the inspection, Segun said there was a gap in the ship-to-shore discharge of PMS which he described as a volatile liquid, adding that during thunderstorms it could not be discharged rather it had to suspend ship-to-shore movement.
“This also affected the loading of trucks at the depot because of safety reasons, so we have to suspend all that during thunderstorms and that’s why you see this tightness.
“Though we have a challenge over the bad portions of motorways which deteriorated due to rains and flooding across the country, we will ensure that we are loading out all through the weekend and that we are mobilizing trucks.
“We are getting fuel stations to run for longer hours and we are getting marketers to collaborate and share stocks, rather than have a station with more trucks, they can release those trucks to other stations for circulation,’’ he said.
Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure, NMDPRA, Mr. Ogbugo Ukoha, said the tightness in Abuja and parts of Lagos arose from the inclement weather which affected operations offshore and routes trucks ply.
When asked about its effort to stop hoarding and the nefarious activities of black-marketers, Ukoha said its officials were on the ground going through the stations and depots to make sure that there was no hoarding.
“Due to the tightness in supply, there may be elements who will try to take advantage of that. We assure Nigerians to go about their businesses and purchase the volume they need without panic,’’ he said.
On any plan to increase fuel pump price, Ukoha said there was no intention or any anticipated plan to increase pump price, adding that the two organisations would continue to collaborate to ensure energy security.
On this background, he said, the authority had done its regulation on national strategic stock and framework, adding that it was at the threshold of operationalising the framework.
“Again the sensitivity on the pump price is another matter, once those national strategic stocks are in place the logistic issues we have will be mitigated to a large extent and stabilise both supply and prices,” Ukoha added.
NAN reports that the team inspected fuel stations in the FCT, including the NNPC Ltd. Retail Outlet at Katampe and the AP fuel station located at Ibrahim Way, Garki 2, which have long queues.
The stations’ managers also confirmed the availability of enough stock, adding that the stations’ pumps dispensed accurately and relied on constant energy to dispense fuel to motorists.
Motorists on the ground also appealed to the government to find lasting solutions and expressed mixed feelings as some have spent longer time queuing for fuel while some did not waste time before their turns.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company (IBEDC) in the Federal Republic of Nigeria has announced the availability of meters following the recent acquisition of a new stock through the Meter Asset Provider (MAP) Scheme.
This initiative aims to improve service delivery and address concerns over estimated billing among IBEDC customers.
According to Engr. Francis Agoha, the acting Managing Director of IBEDC, customers are encouraged to register for meter acquisition through a dedicated platform at msms.ibedc.com.
He said the platform had been designed under the MAP Scheme to ensure a seamless and secure metering experience for all customers.
In the light of recent reports regarding unauthorised individuals collecting cash payments for meters and other services, Engr. Francis Agoha strongly advised IBEDC customers against making cash payments to third parties.
“To safeguard your transactions, we recommend visiting our official website at msms.ibedc.com for meter registration and payments,” he emphasised.
IBEDC provides multiple secure payment options, including IBEDCpay, USSD, 24-hour Self-Service Kiosks, IRecharge, and Fets Wallet designed to facilitate convenient and secure customer transactions.
For those who must make cash payments due to limited access to online services, Engr. Agoha underscored the importance of obtaining a valid receipt for every transaction.
“Ensure the receipt issued bears the customer copy to prevent any potential fraud,” he added.
“We urge all customers to exercise caution and refrain from engaging with unauthorised agents claiming to represent IBEDC,” Engr. Agoha stressed.
For further inquiries or assistance, customers are encouraged to contact IBEDC customer service at 07001239999 or visit www.ibedc.com.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Kenya has increased the bond fee for imported oil consignments destined for Uganda to $45 million.
Uganda’s Energy and Mineral Resources minister Ruth Nankabirwa said Kenya increased the requirement on the size of bond fees at the Vitol Tank Terminal International (VTTI) storage facility in Mombasa from $15 million —posing a bottleneck to Uganda’s hopes of lowering pump prices of the commodity.
VTTI is a privately owned terminal that ties into the Kenya Pipeline Company pipeline network in Mombasa and gives access to the Ugandan market and other landlocked countries further west.
A bond fee is a bank guarantee that an oil company importing fuel for the transit market (usually duty-free fuel) uses to secure duties and taxes payable to the relevant revenue authority should goods be disposed of locally.
The bond can be used to offset taxes in case the company decides to dump the fuel locally and help KRA avert losing billions of shillings in taxes and levies.
Sources privy to the matter say that the Ministry of Energy in Kenya wrote to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA) to increase the fee —a change that is expected to be passed on to consumers in Uganda.
“We expect prices to be more competitive for as long as we are not pushed to incur extra costs at the port because as we speak now, I am going back to Kenya to meet my colleague, Mr (Davis) Chirchir because of one thing….” said Mrs Nankabirwa as carried by The East Africa.
Banks issuing the bonds are likely to take time to increase the amounts to reflect the new bond fees, leading to more time demurrage charges before the cargo is cleared by KRA.
The higher demurrage charges will be passed to consumers in Kampala “They (Kenya) have increased the bond fee at Vitol terminal where we are offloading our products and when you increase the bond fee by the tune of 40 million dollars, that means you are pushing Unoc (Uganda National Oil Company) to also increase and Ugandans are not likely to see reduced pump prices,” she added.
CS Chirchir had not responded to the claims by his Uganda counterpart by press time.
Uganda and Kenya have the joint costliest fuel in the East African region at $1.46 per litre of super.
A litre of diesel is going for $1.37 in Kampala compared to $1.33 in Kenya.
Kampala had hinged on the direct importation of fuel to lower pump prices, months after President Yoweri Museveni blamed the costly fuel on middlemen in the Kenyan fuel importation structure.
Revelations of the higher bond fee demands from Kenya once again bring to the fore the spats that are largely attributed to Kenya’s decision to enter into a Government- to- Government-backed importation of fuel.
This is the latest setback coming months after delays in issuing Unoc with a licence, prompted Kampala to take Kenya to the regional court towards the end of last year.
Kenya had in September last year declined to issue Unoc with a license, prompting Uganda to move to the East African Court of Justice.
Unoc got the license in March year, putting to an end a diplomatic spat between the two neighbours.
Nairobi had while rejecting Unoc’s application cited a raft of reasons, including lack of local footprint of at least five retail stations and five licensed retail stations.
Unoc had also failed to show proof of annual turnover of $10 million for the last three years, even as Kampala held that Kenya was placing unrealistic conditions.
Unoc’s maiden cargoes arrived at the port of Mombasa last week, as the country moves to end decades of relying on Kenyan oil companies.
The Ugandan government-owned firm signed a five-year deal with Vitol Bahrain, amid a fallout with Kenya’s decision to drop the Open Tender System for a Government to Government deal with three Gulf oil majors.
Kenya inked a deal with Saudi Aramco, Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, and Emirates National Oil Company for the supply of fuel on credit for 180 days.
The deal was meant to arrest the weakening of the shilling by ending a monthly demand of an estimated $500 million that oil companies needed to pay for fuel.
But President Museveni accused Kenya of a lack of consultations, prompting Uganda to opt for a similar deal with Vitol Bahrain.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Petrol scarcity has hit several states in the Federal Republic of Nigeria, a situation that is biting motorists in Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina States harder.
The scarcity of the commodity has forced most of the major and independent marketers to close their filling stations, a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) said.
Also, the few ones that were operating had jerked off the price of the commodity to between N800 to N1000, aggravating the already precarious situation.
Similarly, it was observed that petrol black marketers, especially the roadside fuel hawkers were having a field day, with a four-litre gallon selling for between N5000 to N6000.
A cross-section of the motorists interviewed told NAN, “We are very dismayed as the obnoxious situation has negatively affected our activities.”
“A civil servant, Salisu Baso, lamented that he had to pay double the transport fare he used to pay to reach his office at the Federal Secretariat, Kawo-Kaduna,” the report said.
Baso said, ”We don’t even know who is right now. Is it the government or the marketers? Unfortunately, they are just passing the buck.
”But, in whatever case, urgent action should be taken to redress the ugly situation that is jeopardising socio-economic activities in the country.”
For Mrs Franscisca Idika, a trader at the Chechnya market in Kaduna, the lingering petrol scarcity and the soaring prices have badly affected their businesses.
She said, “I have to pay more now to reach the market and we just have to increase the prices of our wares to break even.”
Reports from Kano and Katsina States also revealed a similar disheartening situation of higher prices and endless queues at the few filling stations operating.
Mr Alao Jaremi, an IT expert in Katsina, called on the authorities concerned to take urgent measures to ensure the availability of petrol across the country.
”We need the government to swing into action and do the needful to alleviate the suffering of the hapless Nigerians,” Malam Ibrahim Dan-Musa told NAN in Kano.
NNPCL and the oil marketers have been shifting the blame on the real causes of the paucity of the commodity.
NNPCL was insisting that the long queues across Nigeria were a result of disruption of the ship-to-ship loading of petrol between Mother Vessels’ and ‘Daughter Vessels’, adding, ”This resulted from a recent thunderstorm.”
The national oil company said that adverse weather conditions had also affected berthing at jetties and truck load-outs transportation of products to filling stations, causing a disruption in station supply logistics.
The marketers, however, maintained that they were unable to access the NNPCCL portal to place orders for the commodity.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Italy’s supermajor Eni has announced a new natural gas discovery in the Gulf of Mexico, in the mid-deep waters off the Mexican coast.
The discovery contains an estimated potential reserve of 300 to 400 million barrels of oil equivalent, the company said.
The block where Eni was drilling for gas is in the Sureste Basin, where Eni has an estimated total of over 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent in resources in place.
The company plans to turn the area in what it called “a hub development”, tapping several discoveries in the area.
The news about Eni’s discovery comes on the heels of a report that Carlos Slim, Mexico’s wealthiest man, is investing $1.2 billion in the development of another gas field offshore—the Lakach project led by state energy major Pemex.
Mexico has been expanding its gas-powered generation, building new power plants, and consequently developing more of its gas resources to reduce its overwhelming dependence on imports from its northern neighbor, with imports running at record rates.
Mexico recently updated its proven oil and gas reserves estimate, revising the total upwards, to a total of 8.383 billion barrels of oil equivalent.
Proven reserves, classified as P1, are the best estimate of recoverable resources under current technological and economic conditions.
According to Mexican government data, released in June by the National Hydrocarbons Commission, Mexico’s proven crude oil reserves declined slightly to 5.978 billion barrels from 6.155 billion barrels the previous year.
However, proven natural gas reserves saw a significant increase, rising to 12.297 trillion cubic feet from 11.029 trillion cubic feet.
Mexico’s president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum has pledged to boost investments in natural gas generation.
Sheinbaum’s energy plan envisages the addition of some 13.7 GW of new power generation capacity to the grid over the next six years, with a portion of this coming from solar installations.
For context, Mexico is set to add 3.3 GW in new capacity from gas and solar this year.
Source: Oilprice.com
Eni-Vitol nonetheless proceeded to present their joint statement of claim. At the heart of their case is the simple fact that Ghana is trying to force them to merge a highly valuable, and proven, oil field with another one that has not yet been properly assessed, to international standards, in order to determine if there is even any oil in place.
In the circumstances, such an attempt amounts to a pure ruse to seize a large part of a highly lucrative asset and hand it over to another business without any sensible foundation. International law frowns on unjust expropriation of foreign-owned assets under different guises.
If the government was genuinely interested in merging the fields purely because it wishes to improve efficiency, it would first focus on ensuring that the other business owning the “greenfield” block undertakes the proper technical investigations to confirm if indeed there is oil on that block, and what quantity exactly. This is at the heart of the whole matter.
In fact, carefully analysed from that perspective, Ghana itself STOOD TO LOSE if a merger was forced between a lucrative and fertile oil block and a potentially infertile and valueless one since the merger will affect Ghana’s own holdings in both blocks, which were not uniform at the time of the proposed merger.
In my earlier essay, referenced above, I lay out the various scenarios in which both Eni-Vitol and Ghana would lose massive amounts of money if the unitisation proceeded.
The only beneficiary would have been the owner of the block next door, the optimistically named “Afina field”.
The question that has never been properly addressed is why the government of Ghana was willing to go to such lengths to benefit the Afina owners, even to the detriment of its own economic position and international reputation.
In light of its position on the matter, what specifically did Eni-Vitol want the international tribunal to do for them? Below are the reliefs they were seeking, produced in full.
A careful reading of the reliefs should show that the bulk of Eni-Vitol’s expectations are in the nature of a declaration that the government’s directives for forced unitisation are unlawful and unjustifiable and should not proceed in the manner the government had sought to bring them about. That really is it.
The tribunal, even per the Attorney General’s own atrociously uncandid summary, has declared the government of Ghana’s attempt and approach at forced unitisation to be in breach of its petroleum agreement with Eni-Vitol and therefore unlawful and unjustified. Simple!
The government’s attempt at defending its actions
What was the government’s principal defense at the tribunal and how does it square with how the Attorney General is attempting to spin the outcomes of the proceedings?
The government’s super-expensive international lawyers summed up its case in the paragraph below found in the opening of its statement of defense. (“Claimants” in the text extract refers to Eni-Vitol.)
Government of Ghana’s primary aim in paying for these expensive lawyers to fight its baseless cause at arbitration was to get the tribunal to agree with its approach to the forced unitisation.
The government knew that its case was not in the national interest
The Ghanaian government did not only want the tribunal to agree with its inherently disordered and self-detrimental approach to the merger, which would have damaged the interests of its own citizens, they also wanted the tribunal to find the investors guilty of breaching their agreement with Ghana by not lying down and rolling over immediately they were asked to hand over a juicy chunk of their asset to another business.
The true mindset of the government’s agents in this matter, especially the Attorney General who instructed these lawyers, is exposed by paragraph 49 of the government’s statement of defense.
What that paragraph simply says is that in the end even if the merger leads to losses, Ghana is the ultimate bearer of those losses and so why is Eni-Vitol sweating? Such a deeply unpatriotic and reckless argument to make!
The government, egged on by the Attorney General, believes that it can proceed with technically reckless actions in Ghana’s petroleum sector, actions that will impose losses on the citizens of the country, with no consequence at all. What it is essentially saying here to investors is that, “why are you crying more than the bereaved? We are willing to bear the losses.”
In fact, the government spends the overwhelming proportion of its defense arguing against “commerciality” as an important logic in any regulatory directive that affects the economic structure of a petroleum transaction in which Ghana is involved.
It attempts, in breathtaking elaborateness, to make the case that even if the Afina block does not have any oil, it is fine to merge it with the oil producing Sankofa – Gye Nyame field (the one in which Eni-Vitol have majority interest) even though the inevitable result will be the dilution of economic returns for both Ghana and Eni-Vitol, and even if the only one who stands to benefit is the third-party private business next door.
The disorganised logic of the government’s case
Perhaps, in a belated recognition that their longwinded arguments making the case that commercial logic is irrelevant and all that matters is the discretion of government ministers, the government’s expensive lawyers began to moderate their tone somewhat when it came to defending the decision of the government to award 54.5% of the merged field to the private owner of the next-door Afina block.
What they are saying here, in essence, is that the precise allocation of acreage in the combined block is still in the works.
The illogicality of that argument is inherent in fact that any such decision has to be based on knowledge of how much oil is in the separate blocks.
Without knowing how much oil each party is in essence “bringing to the combined table”, there is no technically sound way to divvy up the combined block.
Since determining “commerciality” is how you confirm that the owner of the non-producing oil block is bringing anything to the table at all, the hollowness of this belated concession about the exact split of the combined field becomes crystal clear, laid side by side with the claim that commerciality is an irrelevant factor.
After all this turning and twisting, how did the government want the tribunal to rule? Ghana’s counter-claims offer a good view.
Ghana wanted the tribunal to punish Eni-Vitol
The government also wanted damages. Yes, it wanted to be paid by the investors for the pleasure of being robbed of their petroleum assets.
After these brazen demands, the government proceeded to list its requested reliefs.
The government failed to secure any of its principal reliefs
The judges at the tribunal must have had a good laugh. But deep down they were not amused.
The government’s punitive claims against Eni-Vitol were totally dismissed. By even the twisted accounts of the Attorney General, it is clear that the tribunal did not so much look at them twice.
Whilst the Attorney General is celebrating the decision of the tribunal not to award large damages against Ghana, and its instructions for Ghana to only pay half of the arbitration costs, the truth is that the government’s attempt to get the tribunal to sympathise with its positions was wholly unsuccessful.
Eni-Vitol on the other hand got what they mostly set out to achieve: a ruling by an international tribunal that the government’s conduct is unlawful, on the basis of international standards and a more expansive reading of the country’s own laws.
The tribunal ruled in Ghana’s interest
In the end, though, especially for us in civil society, what matters is that the citizens understand clearly that the international tribunal was on their side and their government was acting in ways that would have considerably damaged their interests.
Ghana had to issue sovereign guarantees and tap the World Bank’s guarantee facility in order to get the Eni-Vitol field operational.
We are also hearing that White & Case, which partners a politically exposed local law firm, had a role to play at some point. If true, how much did they earn?
Were these expensive legal fees to luxury law firms a factor in the government’s doggedness to pursue a matter completely in conflict with the public and national interest? In addition to the strong and inexplicable urge to divert public and paid-up investor stakes in Sankofa – Gye Nyame to a private business?
What a shame!
Source: Bright Simons 
