[quote author=Hakagure post=39379454]http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-04-29/these-titans-of-oil-are-experts-at-making-bold-predictions

I agree she was wrong, I agree that it was their fault, however what is done is done and we cant fix past mistakes, we need to move forward with the people here now. she was following consensus(see above) very few people called the crash, people tracking shale could predict the crash would occur. However a lot of people in the industry stuck their end in the sand .

That Settles it, culpability rightly fixed

One of the things helping the subsidy is reduced price of oil, however until that subsidy goes away no local refiner of oil is likely to make money unless government buys all their refined product or unless they export it, think of that for a minute, Flawed demand and supply. However the current set of bureacrats are making the best out of a bad situation, as we also know... Our fellow Nigerians will take to the streets violently to protect their low priced fuel price, not realizing that for supply base stability and easily predictable prices, that price must be allowed for float.

This opinion is bandied around by people who don't have an in depth knowledge of the relationship between the world oil market and the peculiarity of the Nigerian oil and gas industry, as much as I will be thrilled adding to your knowledge, ratiocination does not really call for that on this thread, however you should know that as oil price goes up, countries like Nigeria have an increased Subsidy bill at the same time, they exceed the budgetary benchmark and start accumulating excess crude revenue or Forex reserves, what matters is how responsible the Govt of the day is, Like OBJ wrote off $12b in debt and still had enough to launch the $16b NIPP.
Any investor that says he will not make profit refining in Nigeria in the face of Govt intervention knows that if his feed stock is where I think he is going to get it from, the investor is only lying to himself.

I think my thoughts and yours are converging at the same point, we must resolve our manufacturing issues. I actually believe in the protectionism (banning forex for certain goods to be imported, raising tariffs, outrightly forbidding some items) this pushes the local manufacturing base, at the same time we know some are lobbying for this to go (the corruption aspect).

You seem to forget that banning has been around since the military era till the last administration and believe me, the manufacturing industry within the period never made any serious progress, at what point are we gonna tell ourselves the truth that protectionism has failed us in that regards.
Protectionism for local manufacturers is an off the shelf idea, ubiquitous and can easily be tossed by an economics student what we need in the manufacturing industry are big ideas not clinches, protectionism has been around since the 80's with no results

Big ideas were bereft in the last administration, I myself do not trust any administration to resolve endemic issues. I believe they have to take their hands off and turn the economy over to the people, let us solve our problems, let government simply put the right conditions (rules and regulations). Power would be resolved today if it was 100 % privatized (generation AND distribution), I believe same for fuel supply and manufacturing. How is this for a big idea. Transparent, Open bids for everything, no subsidy on fuel, limited capital controls and high protectionism to facilitate conversion from import based economy.

I don't agree with you, if you go back to your archive, Nigeria lived through three decades of perennial bank failures, (hope that qualifies as endemic in your books) the moment Prof Soludo threw in the big idea, Nigerian banks have survived for 9 years without a single incident, furthermore, our banks are offshore competing favorably with its contemporaries, GTB over the weekend declared Q3 profit of over #70b, that is the power of big ideas.
I still have fate in great Nigerians who can make a difference, who knew Soludo before Obasanjo tried him out?

@jpphilips

We may agree on culpability yet it solves nothing.

A large economy like ours is largely resilient of tinkering and changes need to be on a grand scale. I do not subscribe to gradual change, you claim eliminating government controls is suicidal and that removing the subsidy does not affect the profit of a refiner. I would like to see your ratiocination of that. I am very aware of what happens when the price goes up, the price will remain the same and government will book it as excess. Thats not very useful

Protectionism works , this is a historical fact (See China, Korea and Japan, see SUV's in the United states or dairy in Holland or Airbus in Europe, Boeing in the US), it must be combined with FDI, the currency cant be controlled so strongly and you have protectionism, no capital will come in to finance you, you cant transfer technologies due to people concerned they cannot remit their profits. What other thing will you do apart from protectionism, for the near future many countries can undercut us on price, if we dont have tariffs and bans a free market economy will welcome cheaper goods from South East Asia and destroy the local industry.

I agree that there are great Nigerians who can step up and make changes in the polity, I just think they should also have the opportunity to make a change in private enterprise . With rules and regs, a law enforcement structure that punishes corruption and a financial system that ensures track ability , we dont need no government to save us, we will save ourselves. When the subsidies get removed and the forex gets deregulated, it will unleash the initiative of the populace to solve their problems instead of them waiting for some grandmaster to show us the way.

Wow, what thread. Highly educative.

This should form an economics student's 'handbag corner'.