It remains to be seen if the state of emergency will lead to a disruption of Nigerian oil. If so this could have serious consequences for the United States who depends heavily on their sweet crude. -Am
Tuesday May 18, 2004 11:46 AM
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) - Nigeria's civilian president declared a state of emergency powers Tuesday in the violence-ravaged central state of Plateau, replacing the state's elected governor with a former military general and dissolving its legislature.
The declaration gives President Olusegun Obasanjo's administration sweeping powers to rule by decree in the state where hundreds have been killed in recent weeks in fighting pitting Christian and Muslim ethnic groups.
In an address on state radio, Obasanjo said he was suspending Gov. Joshua Dariye and other elected state officials who he said had ``wittingly and unwittingly encouraged acts that have subverted peace and tranquility.''
Replacing Dariye is retired Maj. Gen. Chris Ali, a state resident who served in the Nigerian army under previous junta rulers.
LAGOS, May 18 (Xinhuanet) -- At least 19 persons were feared dead in an early morning fire on Monday arising from an oil pipeline explosion in Rivers state, southern Nigeria, local newspaper The Punch reported Tuesday.
The victims were suspected to have tampered with oil installations, which crisscross Afam-Itam in the state's Oyigbo local government area, in an attempt to siphon oil into their waiting oil tanker for sale.
The newspaper said that the youths were trapped when a major explosion arising from a ruptured oil pipeline, sparked off a hugeflame which consumed them and also ravaged farmlands.
Although the incident occurred in the early hours of Monday, the fire was still burning around 7 p.m. (GMT 1800) on Monday, it added.
Ndubisi Nwankwo, the state's commissioner for energy and natural resources, confirmed to the newspaper that no fewer than 19 of the victims died in the inferno while many who sustained severe burns had been rushed to hospitals.
However, police said that five persons were killed in the inferno while many others were seriously injured and investigations of the cause of the incident and the casualty figure were underway.
Another newspaper The Guardian said Tuesday the fire had claimed over 10 lives, all of them males.
It quoted officials in the state as saying that illegal oil bunkering had been a tradition in Afam-Itam and those involved hadbeen having a running battle with the state government and the police.
Official figures show that Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer, loses about 145,000 barrels per day to oil pipeline vandalization and theft, down from 386,000 barrels recorded by themiddle of last year. Enditem
China to invest $5000 million in Nigeria oil sector
Every step Bush takes, China is there. As the United States depends heavily on Nigerian sweet crude and China plans to increase their influence in Nigeria we will have to wait and see if in the future China is able to cut deeply into our share. -Am
China to Invest $.5Bn in Upstream Sector
This Day (Lagos)
May 21, 2004 Posted to the web May 21, 2004
Onyebuchi Ezigbo Abuja
The Chinese Government has said it would commit more than $500 million in the upstream sector of the country's oil industry.
Also, China would want to invest in the downstream sector, telecommunications, automobile assembly plants, manufacturing and help train Nigerian oil workers.
The country's Vice Minister of Commerce and leader of a 10-member trade delegation to Nigeria, Mr. Wei Jianguo disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during two separate courtesy calls to the Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum and Energy, Dr. Edmund Daukoru and Group Managing Director of the Nigerian national Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Engr. Funsho Kupolokun.
Jianguo said the amount would be spent on the two deep offshore oil blocks (OML 64 and 66) whose formal approval was conveyed by President Olusegun Obasanjo at a recent meeting with the delegation.
The Chinese Oil company - SINOPEC was awarded the contract to operate the two oil fields under a Joint Venture agreement with Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), an NNPC subsidiary.
The Chinese minister said his country is happy with the agreement it had with the corporation to supply China 50,000 barrels of crude oil daily and would want to expand the volume in future. He added that China's oil import this year would exceed 100 million tons.
The leader of the delegation told Kupolokun that his country was interested in establishing a strategic long-term partnership with NNPC and NPDC as well as other local oil firms in developing the oil industry to attain world class standard.
He said China was very impressed by the great progress recorded by Nigeria in the oil and gas sectors.
"We are also glad to hear that President Olusegun Obasanjo has approved the award of two oil blocks, OML 64 and 66 to SINOPEC and that the Chinese company Will operate the top creek marginal field," Jianguo said.
He said the Chinese government is prepared to assist NNPC and other local firms in training their workers in China to acquire new technologies and expertise so that their operations can meet international standard.
The proposed training courses are expected to last between two to five years, he explained.
He further said his country would want to partake in the development of local refining capabilities and would be bidding for local refineries now in the process of being privatised. In order to achieve the desired long-term partnership, Jiangou called for establishment of a mechanism to facilitate the necessary trade agreements. The main task of the mechanism, he said, would be to have active discussion regarding the long-term co-operation, to help co-ordinate the technology and skill acquisition programmes, and to explore other areas where the two countries can partner in the execution of development projects. In his response, Kupolokun said the corporation also expects co-operation between the two countries in the gas and downstream sectors where "NNPC's monopoly is presently giving way and we are looking forward to private sector participation". He also formally invited the Chinese delegation to take interest in the local refining and distribution of petroleum products. Daukoru said it is noteworthy that China had been involved in several partnership projects with Nigeria in the past such as the oil production projects and railway as well as other sectors of the economy. These past co-operative efforts, he said, show that China is not only interested in making quick money but actually has long-term investment plans. He urged the delegation to take opportunity of the forthcoming licensing rounds of more Marginal fields which will come up within the first half of 2005 and further expand their investment profile in Nigeria.
This is an extremely interesting remark by President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria. Currently, Nigeria with its long history of political corruption and a rising Islamic fundamentalist population accounts for 70 percent of Africa’s oil exports. There is no sweet crude spare capacity anywhere in the world. Nigeria is one of the countries which produce the most desirable type of oil, known as light sweet crude for its low sulfur content. The disruption of the flow of Nigerian sweet crude could be devastating to the United States. #msg-3104803
What Obasanjo said is "They [the creditor countries] hold the debt over us like a sword, so it has become another means of intimidation and control. We reject it."
Western creditor nations were now using debt repayment as an issue to put political pressure on Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
According to Obasanjo the United States and other Western creditor nations are keeping Nigeria in poverty and exerting political pressure which has to be for their oil.
I also find it interesting that Obasanjo is speaking out when the Chinese Govt is about to help revamp Nigeria’s oil sector.
NIGERIA: Obasanjo offers to step down if creditors cancel debt
LAGOS, 31 May 2004 (IRIN) - President Olusegun Obasanjo, accused by opposition parties of rigging last year's elections to remain in power for a second term, has offered to resign if that would persuade Western governments to cancel Nigeria's US$30 billion external debt.
He said in a speech on Saturday that the debt, on which Nigeria has been charged heavy penalties for the non-payment of arrears, was simply unpayable.
Obasanjo made the apparently joking offer to step down after protesting that the world superpowers were using debt forgiveness as a blunt instrument of foreign policy, rather than as an incentive to good governance.
He pointed out that much of Pakistan's external debt was cancelled after its government allowed the United States to use Pakistani air space during the US invasion of Afghanistan.
He also noted that much of Iraq's foreign debt would be wiped out by Washington and its European allies to placate Iraqis following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
Obasanjo said in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of his election to power in 1999, that Western creditor nations were now using debt repayment as an issue to put political pressure on Nigeria, the biggest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.
"They [the creditor countries] hold the debt over us like a sword, so it has become another means of intimidation and control. We reject it," Obasanjo said.
Since his election ended 15 years of draconian and increasingly corrupt military rule, Obasanjo has waged a so far unsuccessful campaign to obtain debt forgiveness for Nigeria.
"Debt relief, debt cancellation is a political, not economic issue,” he said bitterly.
In April Washington cancelled a third of Pakistan’s US$3 billion debt to the US government.
And since the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 toppled Saddam Hussein, the Paris Club of western creditor nations and other major international lenders have expressed a willingness to write off a substantial portion of Iraq’s sovereign debt, which runs into hundreds of billions of dollars.
“If the downfall of someone is what it takes, I volunteer to step down if our debt will be written off,” Obasanjo said to loud cheers from the audience.
More than 80 percent of Nigeria’s external debt is owed to the Paris Club, an informal group of 19 permanent member states which usually takes the lead in renegotiating the government-to-government debts of Third World countries.
The remainder is owed to members of the London Club - which negotiates on behalf of private sector trade creditors.
Obasanjo said Nigeria’s original debt stock of about US $10 billion had been paid “twice over” if one included the “penalty for not paying and...penalty for the penalty”.
“This is ridiculous,” he said. “The debt that is being held against us [Nigeria] is unpayable and unsustainable if we really want to have an equitable world.”
According to Mansur Muhtar, head of Nigeria’s Debt Management Office, the Nigerian government has paid out US $35 billion to service its external debt over the past 20 years - more than its present accumulated debt of $30 billion.
Continued debt servicing is directing resources away from badly needed social spending in this country of nearly 130 million people where 66 percent of the population live on less than US$1 per day, according to the World Bank.
A total of US$ 1.4 billion, more than Nigeria's combined budget for health and education, has been set aside for debt servicing in 2004. [ENDS]
BY GBENGA OGUNTIMEHIN, Abuja THE Chinese Government has promised to assist Nigeria with a grant of $30 million (about N4 billion) for the development of necessary economic infrastructure and manpower for the country’s downstream oil sector.
Chinese Vice-Minister of Commerce, Mr. Wei Jianguo, who made this known in Abuja at the weekend said his country would provide technical training in oil exploration and technology on yearly basis to further improve Nigeria’s revenue from oil sector.
He, however, expressed concern about Federal Government’s ban on importation of 41 products, which he said, were mostly from China.
Speaking with Commerce Minister, Alhaji Idris Waziri, during a courtesy call, Jianguo observed that both countries being members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the rule of the organisation should be followed even as he advised Nigeria to open up her market so that its action would not violate WTO regulations.
Jianguo said he had met the Economic Adviser to President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Funso Kupolokun, on the need for a long-term oil co-operation between Nigeria and China, pointing out that his country was ready to transfer its oil exploration technology to boost Nigeria’s oil sector.
He commended Nigeria’s efforts in the health sector, saying that a large consignment of malaria drugs would arrive the country by the end of June.
The Chinese minister said trade volume between his country and Nigeria stood at $1.86 billion as at the end of 2003, while there were 52 Chinese enterprises investing in the country.
He said his country was contemplating investing in such projects as electronics, textile, household utensils and other goods.
Welcoming the delegation, Waziri commended China’s achievement in economic development, assuring that the Federal Government would step up efforts to ensure co-operation between the two countries.
He said government had given priority to economic development in order to eradicate socio-economic problems like poverty, unemployment, HIV/AIDS and under-development.
He explained the ban on 41 products was not to break any trade relations with developing or developed countries of the world like China but to avoid a situation whereby Nigeria was being used as dumping ground for products which could be produced internally.
“No responsible government will put its people in squalor” Waziri remarked, stressing that the rule of WTO people through the NEEDS programme.
He said the market oriented and private sector led economy was actually aimed at improving living standard of the people, and urged the Italian government to use the opportunity to improve her trade relations with Nigeria.
According to Waziri, Nigeria has tremendous natural resources and manpower but needed support from the external world like Italy to be able to further enhance and actualise various economic measures.
He told Ricoveri that Nigeria was not begging for charity but wanted co-operation to move forward and develop at a rapid stage.
Earlier, Ricoveri said Italy realised the various potentials available in the Nigerian economy and was pursuing the needed strategy to establish a long-term economic co-operation with it.
He assured that his country would put in place tangible investment in manufacturing to strengthen the trade relationships.
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