Indian Oil Corp Ltd’s 300,000 barrels per day refinery located on east coast of the country will be shut down for three weeks to pave way for maintenance.
A top official of the company disclosed this to Reuters on Sunday.
“The Indian Oil refinery in Paradip will remain shut from July 25 to August 15 for maintenance,” said Sangram Keshari Mohapatra, the top bureaucrat in the district of Jagatsinghpur, where the refinery is located.
As per the company’s request, a shutdown order has been issued,” he said, adding the refinery was last shutdown completely in 2018.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
Ghana’s petroleum downstream regulator, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), has launched the pilot phase of the Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) in Yendi in the Northern Region of the West African nation.
This will lead to the rollout of a nationwide ‘door-to-door’ distribution of gas distribution in the country.
The pilot is the third after a similar exercise in the Eastern and Ashanti regions.
Speaking at the ceremony held under strict Covid19 protocols, Alhassan Tampuli, Chief Executive of the Authority, said Ghanaians would be encouraged to fully participate in the rollout.
He said the safety inspection division of the Authority would be at hand to assist with the required safety features of distribution outlets.
On the choice of Yendi for the pilot, Mr Tampuli said the municipality was selected because it links major towns such as Salaga and Bimbilla, which are commercially viable towns in the northern part of the country.
Chairman of the Pilot Implementation Committee, Kwaku Agyemang-Duah, who is also the Chief Executive of the Association of Oil Marketing Companies, was confident the team would continue to learn lessons from challenges picked from previous pilots programmes to ensure they are addressed.
“We do pilot to help guide us identify problems and fix them as we go along,” he said.
Chief Executive of Yendi Municipal Assembly, Alhaji Hammed Abubakari Yussif dispelled claims that the programme would disrupt the business activities of those in the sale of firewood.
“This is a safer way of addressing the associated health issues in the firewood business,” he said.
Mr Kwaku Agyemang-Duah, Industry Coordinator and Chairman of the Pilot Implementation Committee
The Senate Committee on Power in the Republic of Nigeria,West Africa, has inspected the on-going 12.4KM Katampe-National Stadium 132kV double circuit transmission line project and the site of the new 330/132/33kV substation at new Apo as part of its oversight function in the power sector.
The on-going Katampe-National Stadium 132kV DC line originates from the 330/132/33kV Katampe Transmission Substation.
The new line comprises of 8.4KM underground armored cabling that terminates at Wuye district. From Wuye, the line would be strung overhead for 4kms on several towers to the 132/33kV Kukwaba Transmission Substation.
The new 330/132/33kV Transmission Substation at new Apo, funded by the Agence Française de Développement (AFD) was designed to take additional bulk electricity to the FCT from Akwanga and also provide bulk supply redundancy in Abuja and environs, consistent with N-1 criteria.
The Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Gabriel Suswam, who led the delegation from the National Assembly, expressed delight with the level of work being done and pledged to support TCN overcome bottlenecks that may pose a challenge to the timely completion of the projects.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com
Hundreds of protesters demanding the government keep its promise to create jobs have shut down a key oil pumping station in southern Tunisia.
According to report filed by VOA, which quoted Reuters, the demonstrators closed in on the Kamour station despite the presence of soldiers guarding the installation.
The demonstrators were looking to pressure the Tunisian government into following through with a 2017 deal to create jobs in the oil industry and other infrastructure projects in the southern Tatouine region, where unemployment is said to be more than 30%.
Those who live there say the central government has ignored them.
Police clashed with anti-government protesters in Tatouine earlier this week after the government said the Tunisian economy had taken a beating from the coronavirus epidemic and sought debt relief from some lenders.
Tunisia’s economic woes come on top of government turmoil after Prime Minister Elyes Fakhfakh resigned Wednesday.
He stepped down over a possible conflict of interest involving government contracts with a waste treatment plant in which he allegedly held shares.
The prime minister said he sold his stake in the company. An investigation is under way, but Fakhfakh said he would stay on as a caretaker prime minister until a successor was named.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has advised against a swift relocation of tank farms from their current locations along Ijegun, Kirikiri areas in Lagos and other parts of the country in order to avoid a dislocation in the supply and distribution chain of petroleum products across the country.
The corporation made the submission at a hearing by the House of Representatives’ Ad-hoc Committee on Relocation of Tank Farms in Residential Areas of Ijegun, Kirikiri.
A statement issued by the NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Dr. Kennie Obateru, quoted the Managing Director of the corporation, Mallam Mele Kyari, as saying that NNPC was not averse to the relocation of the petroleum products tank farms and depots sited in residential areas.
However, it said the NNPC but rather expect some time to be allowed to achieve the full rehabilitation of the refineries and the completion of the Dangote Refinery to enable the nation exit fuel importation before their relocation.
The GMD who was represented by the corporation’s Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Umar Ajiya, told the committee that the tank farms and depots were a major artery for receiving and distributing imported petroleum products to all parts of the country.
He explained that their abrupt relocation would could trigger a crisis not only in the Downstream Sector but also in the nation’s economy in general.
“We are not opposed to the yearnings of the communities or the relocation of the tank farms and depots, but we want it to be done in phases because of the huge financial commitments by the stakeholders. If they are relocated abruptly, even the banking sector would be affected because of the loans they granted for the establishment of the depots”, the GMD stated.
Speaking earlier while inaugurating the Committee, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajiabiamila, said the Ad-hoc Committee was set up to investigate the concerns expressed by the residents in order to have a fair assessment of the situation.
Hon. Gbajiabiamila who was represented by the House Deputy Minority Leader, Hon. Tobi Okechukwu, acknowledged that tank farms and depots were a critical component of the Downstream Petroleum Sector and assured that the House would look at the issue holistically and make a decision in the public interest.
He decried the inability of the NNPC to distribute petroleum products through the pipelines due to incessant vandalism which has made products distribution by tankers over long distances a hazard to the society.
The Committee was set up to receive petitions by the residents of Ijegun, Kirikiri and others areas in Lagos State on the dangers posed by the operations of depots and tank farms to their respective communities.
The Committee is chaired by Hon. Sergius Ogun.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
Halliburton, Microsoft and Accenture entered into a five-year strategic agreement to advance Halliburton’s digital capabilities in Microsoft Azure.
Under the agreement, Halliburton will complete its move to cloud-based digital platforms and strengthen its customer offerings by:
• Enhancing real-time platforms for expanded remote operations,
• Improving analytics capability with the Halliburton Data Lake utilizing machine learning and artificial intelligence, and
• Accelerating the deployment of new technology and applications, including SOC2 compliance, for Halliburton’s overall system reliability and security.
“The strategic agreement with Microsoft and Accenture is an important step in our adoption of new technology and applications to enhance our digital capabilities, drive additional business agility and reduce capital expenditures,” said Jeff Miller, Halliburton chairman, president & CEO said in a press release posted on the company’s website.
“We are excited about the benefits our customers and employees will realize through this agreement, and the opportunity to further leverage our open architecture approach to software delivery.”
“Moving to the cloud allows companies to create market-shaping customer offerings and drive tangible business outcomes,” said Judson Althoff, executive vice president, Microsoft’s Worldwide Commercial Business. “Through this alliance with Halliburton and Accenture, we will apply the power of the cloud to unlock digital capabilities that deliver benefits for Halliburton and its customers.”
The agreement also enables the migration of all Halliburton physical data centers to Azure, which delivers enterprise-grade cloud services at global scale and offers sustainability benefits.
Accenture will work closely with Microsoft, in conjunction with their Avanade joint venture, to help transition Halliburton’s digital capabilities and business-critical applications to Azure.
Accenture will leverage its comprehensive cloud migration framework, which brings industrialized capabilities together with exclusive tools, methods, and automation to accelerate Halliburton’s data center migration and provide for additional transformation opportunities.
Consumers of gasoline and gasoil in the Republic of Ghana should be prepared to pay more for the commodity in the coming days.
According to the Institute for Energy Security (IES), prices of fuel is likely to witness about 1.5 percent increment.
Oil market leaders -GOIL, Shell (Vivo), and Total sell at GHc4.82 as at the closing of the 16th July.
Crude oil prices have seen a rise over the last couple of days.
At about 9:45 Friday, WTI was trading at US$40.59 while Brent was selling at US$43.15.
S&P’s Platts benchmark for fuels shows average gasoline price gained 5.59 percent to close at US$390.73 per metric tonne, from a previous average of US$370.05 per metric tonne.
Gasoil appreciated by 5.31 percent to close trading at US$361.80 per metric tonne, from a previous average of US$343.57 per metric tonne.
Data collated by IES Economic Desk from the Foreign Exchange (Forex) market shows the cedi remained largely stable in relation to the U.S. dollar, appreciating by 0.17 percent against the major trading currency for oil.
The cedi traded at an average price of Gh¢5.71 to the dollar over the period, a departure from the Gh¢5.72 recorded in the second pricing-window of June 2020.
“Going by the 3.68 percent surge in price of Brent crude oil, in addition to the 5.59 percent and 5.31 percent rise in the prices of gasoline and gasoil respectively on the international market; the Institute for Energy Security (IES) foresees prices of fuel on the domestic market going up marginally even though the cedi appreciated against the US dollar by 0.17 percent.
However, competition between Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) to control and gain more market shares, and mounting pressure on the government to reduce prices of fuel may result in fuel prices remaining largely stable within the second pricing-window of July 2020,” a statement issued by IES said.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
The United States has warned companies helping Russia to complete the Nord Stream 2 and the TurkStream 2 natural gas pipelines that they should ‘get out now’ or face consequences, as the Trump Administration steps up efforts to stop the construction of the controversial Russia-led pipelines in Europe.
The U.S. Department of State is updating its sanctions guidance under the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA, to include Nord Stream 2 and the second line of TurkStream 2, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said at a press briefing last Wednesday.
“This action puts investments or other activities that are related to these Russian energy export pipelines at risk of U.S. sanctions. It’s a clear warning to companies aiding and abetting Russia’s malign influence projects will not be tolerated. Get out now, or risk the consequences,” Secretary Pompeo said.
The projects are the “Kremlin’s key tools to exploit and expand European dependence on Russian energy supplies, tools that undermine Ukraine by cutting off gas transiting that critical democracy, a tool that ultimately undermines transatlantic security,” he added.
The U.S. view that the Nord Stream 2 project is further undermining Europe’s energy security by giving Russian gas giant Gazprom another pipeline to ship its natural gas to European markets.
The U.S. has already imposed some sanctions on the project, which saw Western vessel and technology providers pull out of the project in December 2019. Following the announcement of the sanctions, Switzerland-based offshore pipelay and subsea construction company Allseas immediately suspended Nord Stream 2 pipelay activities.
Earlier this month, a Russian vessel capable of completing the pipelaying for Nord Stream 2 left a German port and entered Danish waters where the last section of the controversial pipeline has yet to be completed.
This occurred several days after the Danish Energy Agency allowed Nord Stream 2 AG to use pipelaying vessels with anchors for the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipelines. With an anchored Russian vessel, Gazprom could complete the construction of the pipeline in Danish waters.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
Ghana’s power distribution company, Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), has refuted media report suggesting that electricity tariff has gone up by 17.5 percent.
Some online portals are reporting that government after absorbing cost of electricity for lifeline customers and 50 percent rebate for commercial users, for three months had turned around to slap consumers with 17.5 percent tariff.
However, the state power distributor, in a disclaimer issued, said: “ECG wishes to inform its cherished customers and the general public that the PURC, which is mandated by law to set tariffs, has not informed ECG of any increase in tariff, neither has the ECG received notice from the Government of Ghana of new or increased taxes to be applied to the current electricity tariff structure.”
The ECG, thus, urged customers and the general public to ignore the misinformation.
Checks at the utilities regulator, PURC, indicated that there has not been any increase in electricity tariff as suggested by some online portals.
Meanwhile, Head of Audit at the Large Taxpayers Office of the GRA, Dr Martin Yamborigya, has also dismissed the claim that new taxes had been imposed on electricity consumers, thereby, increasing the levy.
He explained that per the Value Added Tax Act, 2013 (Act 870), electricity in general was supposed to be taxable, except the domestic use up to the lifeline tariff (between 0-50 kilowatts), which the government gave out for free to consumers for the three-month period.
Dr Yamborigya added that there is already a VAT component on electricity bills since 2014 when Act 870 started with implementation, hence, consumers already pay taxes, and that is not new.
He further clarified that power producers are supposed to charge VAT on what they produce before they sell to Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG).
This is known as the input tax.
ECG also charges output tax before selling to consumers, and is supposed to account for both the input and output tax, and deduct the input from the output and pay the difference to GRA.
“However, what is happening now is that when the power producer is billing ECG, they don’t include the VAT, but ECG charges consumers VAT.
“So ECG calculates only the VAT it charges consumers at the end of the month. So they are not able to pay all the amount which has led to huge debt of about GH₵350 million. In view of this development, we decided to spread it in order to lessen the burden on ECG,” Dr Yamborigya said.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
Ghana’s strategic oil company, Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has reopened its head office following a successful disinfection exercise.
A statement issued by the Corporate Communications Department said, “BOST would like to announce for the information of the general public that it has re-opened its head office at Dzorwulu for business following a thorough disinfection of the facility after some staff tested positive for COVID-19.”
About 46 workers of the company tested positive for the virus after a mass testing exercise.
Initial report indicated that a spouse of the I.T Department tested positive for the virus, thus, forcing management to request all head office staff to test to know their status.
The statement requested all companies and individuals with urgent business to continue to utilise BOST”s virtual business platforms for timely delivery of services.
“Management would further like to assure the general public that our operations are not negatively impacted by the health risk and our staff, as well as visiting clients are fully protected by specific protocols set out by the Health and Safety Unit of the company.
“We count on your usual cooperation to effectively deliver on our mandate to ensure petroleum product availability and security for our country,” the statement said.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
A former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana’s leading power producer, Volta River Authority, Erastus Alexander Kalitsi is urging the leadership of the Authority to take the lead in promoting development of solar and wind energy in the country’s generation mix.
Mr. Kalitsi also expects VRA to continue to play a significant role in the West African regional market by continuing to supply electricity to Togo and Benin through Compagnie Electrique du Benin (CEB), Burkina Faso, as well as through a vigorous interchange with Cote d’Ivoire.
“As the structure of the power sector has changed with the participation of Independent Power Producers and introduction of key sector players like Energy Commission, GRIDCo, NEDCo and Bui Power Authority, and with the drastic increase in demand for electricity over the years, I expect VRA to continue improving the operational and financial efficiency of its generating facilities,” Mr Erastus Alexander Kalitsi said in an exclusive interview published in the Energy Ghana Magazine.
“Now relieved of some of its former responsibilities by IPPs, Bui Power and GRIDCo, VRA should focus greater attention on its non-power responsibilities under the VRA Act. These will include matters related to Reservoir Lands, the rump of Resettlement issues, Lake Research Studies, Lake Health and commercial development of Fisheries and Water Transport,” he added.
Mr Kalitsi played a key role in the construction of the Akosombo Dam.
He was appointed Chief Executive of the VRA on January 1, 1991, and served in this role until July 1998 when he became Chairman of the VRA Board.
The Authority, under his leadership, persuaded the government and society to support the injection of thermal facilities into the generation mix of the country, and successfully mobilised financing and built its first major thermal plant of 330MW at Aboadze in the Western Region.
He also led efforts to attract the first-ever purely private power company, CMS Energy of Michigan-USA, to partner VRA and invest their own capital in expanding VRA’s thermal facilities to 550MW.
This was 50 percent of the combined generating capacity of the Akosombo and Kpong dams. To achieve this level of success, the attributes required are hard work, probity, diligence and respect for individuals whom one needs to relate with.
Currently, the VRA, under the leadership of Ing. Emmanuel Antwi-Darkwa, is constructing 17 MW Kaleo/Lawra Solar Project located in the Upper West after commissioning 2.5MW Solar Power Plant in Navrongo in 2013.
It is also executing the 60MW Pwalugu Hydropower Multipurpose project.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
The Volta River Authority (VRA) of the Republic of Ghana invites Sealed Tenders for the Printing and Supply of 2021 Customised Corporate Diaries.
Tender for 2021 Corporate Diaries 1
The African Energy Chamber has appointed a US-Africa Committee to serve on its Advisory Board and support the development of stronger energy cooperation and investment between the United States and Africa.
Serving in their personal capacities, the members of the US-Africa Committee gather several decades of experience in government and the private sector from both sides of the Atlantic, and share a passion for Africa and its development.
They include:
• Reginal “Reg” Spiller, CEO, Azimuth Energy Investments LLC
• Kola Karim, CEO, Shoreline Energy International
• Rogers Beall, Executive Chairman and CEO, Africa Fortesa Corporation
• Jude Kearney, President, Kearney Africa
• Derek Campbell, CEO, Energy & Natural Resource Security, Inc.
• Alicia Robinson-Morgan, Managing Director for Africa, Millenium Challenge Corporation
• Akinwole Omoboriowo II, Chairman and CEO, Genesis Energy Group
• Ann Norman, General Manager – Africa, Pioneer Energy
• Dean Foreman, Chief Economist, American Petroleum Institute
The African Energy Chamber truly believes that the potential for capital, expertise and technology transfers between the US and Africa is under-exploited.
While Power Africa remains to date the most successful initiative to develop Africa’s energy sector by tapping into American capital and technology, more can be done in light of the continent’s continued energy poverty.
From exploration to gas infrastructure, and from power technology to energy funding, the United States remain a global leader that has much to bring to Africa under the right partnerships and joint-ventures that can support local content development and jobs creation.
“The largest but also most recent discoveries in Africa were made by bold and capable American companies who have proven time and again that betting on Africa bears fruits. At times when the continent seeks to develop much stronger gas value chains and attract investment into midstream and downstream infrastructure, we need to look back at the United States and develop stronger partnerships. As Africa embraces energy transition, a substantial part of the capital needed to develop cleaner energy solutions also lies with American companies and institutions,” declared Nj Ayuk, Executive Chairman at the African Energy Chamber.
The US-Africa Committee is the first committee on the African Energy Chamber’s Advisory Board to be announced.
The Chamber has put together leading industry experts, executives and public representatives to support several initiatives over the course of 2020 and 2021, such as local content development, natural gas and energy transitions, the promotion of an enabling environment and the expansion of exploration activities.
A move by the African Refiners & Distributors Association (ARA), and the African Union (AU), to ensure common standard for the importation and refining of petroleum products on the continent remains critical to trade, environment and the economy of the region, stakeholders said, Wednesday.
Under the plan, Africa is expected to adopt harmonized AFRI Clean Fuel Specifications across. The Cleaner Fuel spec recommends adoption of AFRI five (50 ppm sulphur for gasoline and diesel) by 2025, and AFRI 6 spec (10 ppm for same products) by 2030.
Speaking to The Guardian, Executive Secretary of ARA Mr. Anibor Kragha, said the objective is to stop the importation of fuels not meeting these AFRI specs into Africa by 2021, and give existing refineries until 2025 to upgrade their facilities to produce the cleaner specs.
This comes when a number of refineries are already springing up in Nigeria, even as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), also considers rehabilitating its existing refineries.
Kragha disclosed that the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Council of Ministers of Hydrocarbons in February 2020 already recommended product imports to meet AFRI five specs by 2021, and regional refineries to meet AFRI five specs by 2025.
While some stakeholders are concerned about the poor implementation of existing regulations in Nigeria, they noted that the new standard would allow petroleum products to be moved easily across Africa.
They also noted that the development would create uniform trade deals, boost pan African collaboration and allow uniform framework for implementation.
Recently, Stakeholders Democracy Network (SDN), had claimed that samples of petrol from illegal refineries in the Niger Delta were of a higher quality than imported equivalents, alleging that fuel exported from Europe exceeded EU pollution limits by as much as 204 times.
Although the standard currently being used in Nigeria is 150 ppm for petrol, the stakeholders condemned the regulation, saying it is 15 times higher than the EU standard.
Kragha said that AU and ARA had jointly held a virtual Consultative Forum with key stakeholders across the continent, including NNPC, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), ECOWAS, SAR of Senegal, NPA of Ghana, NOC of Ethiopia, Sonangol, SAPIA of South Africa, Sasol, UNEP, and others.
He revealed that the stakeholders’ input would be submitted to the AU Technical Meeting of African Energy Ministers in October, adding that two more consultative sessions are planned for July 13, and July 30, ahead of the report submission in August/September.
According to him, ARA also planned to develop a register of projects for upgrading refineries and infrastructure across Africa and engage financiers, including the African Development Finance Institutions like Asian Development Bank, Afrexim Bank, and the Africa Finance Corporation, to secure the required funding for these critical upgrade projects.
“Another key focus area is for African countries, especially those sharing common fuel supply chains, to develop an integrated policy covering both fuel quality and vehicle exhaust emissions to achieve the ultimate objective of Clean Air in our African cities. Without this integrated, coordinated policy, the objective of clean air will not be realized whether by imports or local production,” Kragha stated.
However, Adeola Adenikinju of the Department of Economics, and Centre for Petroleum, Energy Economics and Law, University of Ibadan, said the development would help if all the countries on the continent could sign up to the new standard.
Stating that Nigeria is supposed to be at the vanguard of pushing for such a standard, Adenikinju noted that allowing for a uniform model across the continent is vital to trade.
He said: “We have standards in Nigeria; but our problem is implementation. DPR and other agencies have standard quality but those products still come into the country without meeting specifications. That is a key area we need to look at.
“Even when we have the common standard, if we don’t work on our implementation, enforcement and sanction we won’t achieve the desired objectives. One, we cannot guarantee it, and other African countries won’t trust our products even when that common standard is there. It will affect our ability to trade.”
PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Associate Director, Energy, Utilities and Resources, Habeeb Jaiyeola, warned that Nigeria cannot afford to overlook the regulation at a time when private and other modular refineries are being built.
He stressed the need for the specifications to put local realities across the countries into consideration, urging Nigeria to review existing regulations to ensure that proper preparation was made for the success of such a plan.
To him, the challenges of climate change and other environmental issues on the continent is unacceptable, therefore the need to keep to global best practices is necessary.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
On the choice of Yendi for the pilot, Mr Tampuli said the municipality was selected because it links major towns such as Salaga and Bimbilla, which are commercially viable towns in the northern part of the country.
Chairman of the Pilot Implementation Committee, Kwaku Agyemang-Duah, who is also the Chief Executive of the Association of Oil Marketing Companies, was confident the team would continue to learn lessons from challenges picked from previous pilots programmes to ensure they are addressed.
“We do pilot to help guide us identify problems and fix them as we go along,” he said.
Chief Executive of Yendi Municipal Assembly, Alhaji Hammed Abubakari Yussif dispelled claims that the programme would disrupt the business activities of those in the sale of firewood.
“This is a safer way of addressing the associated health issues in the firewood business,” he said.
The Chairman of the Committee, Sen. Gabriel Suswam, who led the delegation from the National Assembly, expressed delight with the level of work being done and pledged to support TCN overcome bottlenecks that may pose a challenge to the timely completion of the projects.
Source: www.energynewsafrica.com
