Oil keeps sliding on oversupply fears

The price of oil has hit another five-year low as fears of oversupply continue to mount.

Brent crude was down $1.77 at $67.30 a barrel in Monday afternoon trading, having earlier hit $66.77 - its lowest since October 2009.

US crude was down $1.44 at $64.40, after falling as low as $64.14.

Morgan Stanley predicted that Brent would average $70 a barrel in 2015, down $28 from a previous forecast, and be $88 a barrel in 2016.

The investment bank also said that oil prices could fall as low

Oil steadies below $73 after hitting five-year low

Brent crude oil steadied below $73 a barrel yesterday, although Russian and Nigerian currencies remained under pressure on persistent doubts over their central banks’ ability to provide support.

With Brent crude trading at about $72, breaking a five-day losing streak, the rouble staged a brief rally but headed lower again, losing 1.4 percent against the dollar.

naira-Dollar

Unease is growing about the Russian central bank’s absence from

Moscow to Follow OPEC Decision Maintain Output Level

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ (OPEC's) decision to abstain from cuts in oil production has forced Russia not to proceed with its own cuts, Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov, according to TASS news agency.

The OPEC agreed on Thursday to roll over the ceiling of 30 million barrels per day, at least 1 million above OPEC's own estimates of demand for its oil next year.

Oil prices have dived after the decision, reaching a new four-year low. North Sea Brent fell by $2.43, or 3.3 percent on the day, to $70.15 on Friday.

Russia is

Oil price: Opec members split over output cuts

Saudi Arabia has indicated it will not push for output cuts to help push up oil prices, as Opec oil producers prepare for their meeting on Thursday.

The oil market will "stabilise itself eventually", said Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi.

Saudi Arabia is the largest producer of the 12 members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec).

The oil cartel is split over how to react to the sharp slump in oil prices.

The price of Brent crude has plunged 30% since June, triggered by a sharp rise in US shale oil output and weakening global demand.

There is speculation that

Host Community Opposes Sale of OML 29

The host community to the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 29 has opposed the intention of the federal government to sell the oil block to interested buyers.

Anglo Dutch oil giant, Shell, has been offering several of its onshore oil assets for sale to interested buyers as part of global divestment strategy.

However, the host community to OML 29, Nembe Bassambiri, Bayelsa State, in a position paper on Tuesday, said it rejected any purported divestment or sale by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Nigerian Agip Oil Company Limited (NAOC) and

Shell Nigeria Denies It Lied to Dutch Court

Shell Petroleum and Development Company has denied that it lied to a Dutch court in The Hague about oil pollution in the Niger Delta.

The multinational company, half owned by Nigerian government and with significant Dutch shareholding, said sabotage, not company negligence, caused the spills in 2004 along the Trans-Niger pipeline that destroyed several hectares of mangrove forests and the livelihoods of the residents of Goi village.

SPDC, according to AFP,

Ghana indicts Nigeria for breach of gas supply contract

Ghana, yesterday, accused Nigeria of breaching the agreement between both countries to supply gas to Ghana, a situation that has worsened the country’s power supply.

Mr. Edward Bawa, Communications Consultant at Ghana’s Energy Ministry told a Ghanaian news medium that since the inception of the West African Gas Pipeline Project, Nigeria, which is responsible for supplying Ghana, Togo and Benin with natural gas, has proven to be unreliable.

“Since gas started flowing through the West African Gas Pipeline, Nigeria has demonstrated that they can’t be relied upon to give us gas,” he maintained.

According to him, Nigeria was supposed to send

Oil sector loses N32bn foreign investment

The non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, has started to take its toll, as foreign investments into the oil and gas sector dropped by $197.31 million, about N31.6 billion in three months, between April and June 2014.

According to the second quarter, Q2, Nigerian Capital Importation Report, released by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, the oil and gas sector accounted for 0.07 per cent of total capital imported into Nigeria with $3.83 million, about N612.8 million.

The NBS stated that total capital imported into the Nigerian economy in Q2 2014 was $5.804 billion, rising by $1.899 billion or 48.64 per cent from $3.905 billion recorded in the opening quarter of this year.

“Relative to the $5.618 billion recorded in the corresponding quarter of 2013, capital importation demonstrated positive year on year growth of

Total to sell more assets, cuts oil output target

French oil company Total is to sell more assets and cut costs to generate more cash and is to revamp exploration plans after reducing its oil production target.

Total, which has struggled with production outages in Libya, Kazakhstan and Nigeria, on Monday cut its 2017 output goal to 2.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day from a previous 3 million.

France’s biggest company by market value and the West’s fourth biggest oil and gas group launched a “high-risk, high-reward” drilling strategy two years ago. But this has had disappointing results as high-cost investments did not lead to large discoveries.

“We have more than 15 major projects to fuel the future growth … Two thirds of those projects are operated by us so that gives us confidence we will achieve the targets,” chief financial officer Patrick de La Chevardiere said at Total’s investor day in London on Monday.

Total, like other big oil companies, has been under pressure from

Crisis Looms as NNPC, DPR Workers Begin Strike over Pension Issues

Nigeria’s oil and gas industry may face unprecedented disruptions of both its downstream and upstream activities as workers of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) yesterday embarked on industrial action to protest the demand by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) for the two organisations to stop in-house pension fund management system and adopt the open pension system.

Other demands include immediate steps to carry out turn around maintenance (TAM) on the four refineries as agreed between government and the two unions and  restore crude supply to the refineries.

The workers, under the aegis of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) and the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas workers (NUPENG) yesterday barricaded the gates of the head offices of NNPC and DPR in Abuja and Lagos, respectively, preventing administrative officers from entering their offices.

The unions also directed its members to withdraw from

Oil industry weakness threatens infrastructure spending growth

The Nigerian oil and gas industry which is currently being undermined by a poor investment climate constitutes a major threat to the country’s growing share in the sub-Saharan African infrastructure market, BusinessDay has learnt.

Infrastructure spending, which rose to $23 billion in 2013, is expected to grow by $4.5 billion yearly to $77 billion in 2025 underpinned by a more investor-friendly environment towards oil investment and solid government revenue growth from oil price rises.

But Nigeria has in recent times seen a decline in oil and gas investment and revenue from the industry on the back of delay in the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), drastic fall in imports of Nigerian crude oil by the United States and rising crude oil theft and sabotage.

The country has also suffered historically from a lack of refining capacity, which means exporting the overwhelming majority of its crude oil output and importing fuels, and this is taking a toll on government coffers.

The country’s economy is currently

Banks largely exposed to energy sector, says Afrinvest

The concentration of loan portfolio in the banking industry in few sectors poses systemic risk for the economy, according to Afrinvest, a foremost investment banking firm, which released a report on the Nigerian banking sector yesterday.

Looking at the loan portfolio of the industry, the report shows that there is a huge concentration of risk based in the power sector and the oil and gas sector, meaning that the increase in lending does not cut across all sectors of the economy.

Total loans to the power sector in 2013 was about $1.3bn for Discos and $1.7bn for Gencos. Additionally, it is expected that $5.8bn would be the loan figure for FY 2014 to the power sector.

The Afrinvest report further points to the increase in the balance sheet of the CBN from $11.4bn in 2011 to $19.2bn in 2013; with the significant increase coming from AMCON bonds.

This implies that the CBN would be unable to afford a bailout should there be another banking crisis if power sector firms are unable to service their loans

The report shows that

Transcorp Hotels to issue N8 billion in IPO

Transcorp Hotels, part of the Transcorp Plc conglomerate, has filed for an N8 billion ($49.3 million) initial public offering of 800 million ordinary shares of 50kobo.

The company made the disclosure through a notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE).

Transcorp Hotels, whose flagship hotel is managed by the Hilton group in Nigeria’s capital city Abuja, is 88 percent-owned by the conglomerate, with the balance held by the Nigerian government.

The conglomerate, with interest in power generation, agribusiness and oil and gas has