Hints and tips:
...“The ambition was to sanitise the corruption in the petroleum industry by completely deregulating the sector,” he said....
...In a report to the National Assembly on Monday, Samuel Akura, the auditor general, said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had failed to transfer the sum — proceeds from crude oil sales —...
...Shell’s Nigeria subsidiary, the Shell Petroleum Development Corporation (SPDC), is the largest onshore producer in the Niger Delta, where millions of barrels have been spilled — in accidents and as a result...
...officials and civil servants scrambled to meet a deadline last month to withdraw funds from the banks, two of which have been fined for failing to remit large sums they were holding for the Nigerian National Petroleum...
...Reforms in the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation are being fronted by former ExxonMobil executive Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, but all are subject to the president’s sign-off, industry officials...
...The former petroleum minister, Diezani Alison-Madueke, now resident in the UK, was taken in for questioning in October. She denies any wrong doing....
...Additional reporting by William Wallis in Accra...
...It also suggests that a new government will move quickly to plug leakages at the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation....
...Mr Jonathan commissioned the report last year after the outspoken former governor of the central bank, Lamido Sanusi, claimed that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation had withheld more than $1bn...
...William Wallis is the FT’s African affairs writer Photographs: Benedicte Kurzen/NOOR; Panos Pictures; Reuters; Getty...
...As petroleum minister during the 1970s oil boom, Muhammadu Buhari set up the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation....
...The shortages have been compounded by a series of strikes by tanker drivers — over the non-payment of haulage fees — and at the state oil company, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation....
...Private investment in refining has been stymied largely because the government sets the price of petroleum products artificially low, and until the market is deregulated it is unlikely to be commercially...
...Gen Buhari, who first governed Nigeria as a military ruler in the 1980s, was petroleum minister when the NNPC was created in 1977....
...During the 1970s he served as a state governor and then petroleum minister....
...It had also spent $5.32bn on petroleum subsidies and $3.38bn on paraffin subsidies, with the remaining gap filled by operational costs....
...He has $11bn — in bank loans and personal investments — riding on a planned refinery, petrochemicals and fertiliser plant outside Lagos, which could transform Nigeria’s downstream petroleum sector and slash...
Nigeria-focused oil group given two more weeks to bid for rival
...It covers some of the money Mr Sanusi suggested was owed to the treasury but does not address opaque crude oil swaps — where crude oil is exchanged for refined petroleum imports without cash changing hands...
...He said the country will draw down on a petroleum stabilisation fund to bridge the gap in finances this year and refinance some of the country’s debt, now worth over 60 per cent of GDP....
...The government has agreed with the IMF to impose a 17 per cent petroleum tax, freeze the hiring of public sector workers and end costly energy subsidies, among other belt-tightening measures....
...“It’s not the time to be talking about tightening belts when you are campaigning for votes,” says Odein Ajumogobia, former petroleum minister and member of the ruling People’s Democratic party....
...The relentless violence comes amid rising political tension ahead of scheduled elections, in which General Muhamadu Buhari, a former military ruler and petroleum minister, is positioning himself as the strongman...
...Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), a Shell subsidiary, had admitted liability for spills of 4,000 barrels caused by operational failures but later withdrew those estimates, conceding...
...project could eventually revolutionise Nigeria’s energy sector by slashing fuel imports, eliminating costly rackets associated with subsidies and crude oil swaps, and adding billions of dollars in value to petroleum...
International Edition