₦airaland Forum

where is Mrs Iweala? I thought no more debt after the Paris exit. What happened to fiscal discipline?

fresh air

Dont talk about it, be about it.

I don’t see how FG can compel these companies to build refineries when their business model clearly shows the opposite. Majority of these companies are getting out of the downstream business while beefing up their upstream businesses. They are no more a refining company, but exploration and production companies.

Chevron, Exxon Conoco Phillips, Marathon Oil, Murphy Oil, and other upstream companies are clearly divesting majority of their refinery businesses worldwide, and what they have left remains strategic.
Example of this is the sale of Pembroke refinery in UK to Valero, divestment from Nigerian petroleum products marketing businesses.

Exxon selling its Japanese refining and marketing business to partner TonenGeneral Sekiyu K.K.,
ExxonMobil selling off its interest in three businesses operating an oil refinery and retail stations in Malaysia to San Miguel Corporation (SMC) of the Philippines for a total of US$610 million.

Conoco Phillips and Marathon split their company into two public companies to drive home the point.

This plan of compelling these companies to build refineries on the pretext of pumping product out of Nigeria is dead on arrival, considering their action.

Gideonyte:
If this goes through then it will be great!!!! The truth is no Nigerian company has the internal expertise and experience to build refineries, none has ever done it before so it will be great to allow these companies do it for us, however, Exxon and Co should assume the role of contractors and technical partners. They will build it, run it for some time whilst training our people. We need jobs in this country! You may not have an idea of the thousands of jobs oil from Nigeria creates in the US, these jobs are needed in the country!

Have you ever wondered how Nigeria is building one of the largest LNG plants in the world The contract signed by TSKJ consortium is such that they are paid not by CASH but by LNG! So basically these guys build what pays them! That's why NLNG has grown astronomically over the years!

Another case in point is the Afam Power plant (650MW) built by Shell and NNPC. Do u know that NNPC initially did not contribute their usual quota to that project but Shell did it anyway in record time for $2.5b.

I'm not saying we shouldn't encourage indigenous companies but pray tell which indigenous company can prove that it has all the expertise to build a refinery? It takes a lot o, to even find and get the oil from the ground is not easy at all. Many of the indigenous companies will still subcontract it out to foreign firms and of course you know it will open terrible avenues for corruption.

I support this abeg!

I agree with you that Nigerian companies are not there in terms of experience and expertise, but they can grow and learn through proper corporate planning, joint ventures and necessary government support. We don’t have to allow foreign companies to build whatever infrastructures, refineries e.t.c alone. By allowing them to do it alone, we’re depriving the country and ourselves necessary experience that’s suppose to accumulate to Nigerians in the process.

Imagine for example if we allow Shell/Exxon to build refinery themselves. That means the whole EPC process will be done by their employee. Engineering experience, financial, logistics experience and other experiences that Nigerians can and should benefit from; through the job process will be lost. The knowledge and experience through the job will stay within the foreign company.

Assuming the project has a partner such as Oando or other Indigenous companies under a joint venture agreement. Assuming a (40:60 agreement) where foreign company retain the operatorship of the proposed venture, but have representatives to oversee the project scope including financing, engineering, safety, logistics and others. At least the proposed venture will ensure certain experience are ceded to the indigenous company which they can always applied somewhere else.  

Government should incentivise our indigenous companies, and make it easy to joint venture with foreign companies. Government should help mitigate certain risk issues that these foreign companies might be looking at while dealing with indigenous companies. Issues such as financing capabilities should be looked at; government can provide funding along side of other financial institution, World Bank, US EXIM bank, at a reduced interest rate and high tenor to ensure these indigenous companies meet escrow account funding, cash calls and other funding activities. These funding approach should be structured to allow FG recoup its investment same time other financial institution get their payment.

dplordx:
Is this news at all? Duh: so you dont know IMF, UN, Common-Wealth, Paris Club are nothing but tools created to keep colonialism in place?
Isnt it obvious by the 1st thing Okonjo-Iweala did when she worked for Baba, and now for Jonah?
Make the super-rich richer, and destroy the commoners? Shame y'all do nothing but play with your BBs all day long. Pick up international books, and start seeing how the world see Nigeria. A rich dummy that every internationalist see as the perfect target. Besides, this Bokoharam saga has so much internationalist fingerprints on it. When a group thats hell-bent on destruction, without a mission or goal is running around, please, suspect the CIA, or their ancilliaries. GEJ isnt paying his dues, and they wont let him breath.

This is not new news at all, i agree with you. So many people still need to be educated / reoriented; on how to free their mind from mental slavery, why sectional, tribal and religious sentiment should not be allowed to polarize our politics, policies and economics, why and how corruption, nepotism will continue to regress our economy if we allow it to continues to thrive, why and how divide and rule policies are not in the interest of Nigerians.

These are the reasons why we need to continue to create awareness to enlighten people on problems and solutions. Information has to be bandied around over and over for people to get the message. People don’t just change their ideology, character, faith overnight,  unless they have reasons to. Let’s all give them reasons why, and continue to create the necessary awareness that will result in progressive change for all Nigerians and Africans.

Part III

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOwE0nGLvR4&feature=related

Part II

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sNV6h7DOyY&feature=related

Part I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AynGBMUgdmg&feature=related

This is a must watch documentary.

My objective for posting this you-tube message is not point fingers, or hate anybody, countries or continent but to create awareness; to liberate our minds and ourselves from mental slavery. The goal is to enlighten people on issues, problems, ideologies, characters, that continues to regress our country and to stimulate our thinking on how we can correct these issues.     
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTbdnNgqfs8

Ndata:
SURPRISE! So GTB comes after First bank followed by Zenith.I never knew Gtb has overtaken those banks.Wonders shall never end!

In terms of brand value, this is different from enterprise value and market capitalization.

To those of you condemning Ribadu, I will reply by saying

"The greatest punishment to a wise man who refuses to rule, is for him to suffer the misrule of idiots"

The man has taking the honourable path. Kudos to him

Why is the government not arresting this guy?

Is this article about subsidy repayment or loan repayment? This has nothing to do with FG in terms of subsidy payment, that will come later. The article is about repaying a business loan, and not a political loan. If he was able to secure such loan, got subsidy funds(free money), then he should be able to pay it back. I clearly don't understand the political victimization here. Negotiate with AMCON if thats what you need to do, but dont play the political card when the game is up.

When people hear this kind of news, it should be an awakening call to every citizens of Nigeria to remind us that if we don't plan and organize ourselves properly; in the next 20-50 years, the same story of relinquishing more than 43% of our oil revenue to foreigners will continue to dominate Nigerians daily discussion. The time to fight corruption, injustice, bad governance, accountability, transparency, mediocrity, sectionalism, religion and other regressive issues is now, because all these issues are the reasons why status quo continues to hold our economy to ransom.

Back in the 1960 – 80’s, Saudi Arabia allow the west to come into their country to explore, produce and to cart away high financial and other economic benefits from their Country in return for the promise to train Saudi’s workforce. Agreement was made, promise was fulfilled. Many years after we have the birth of Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC), Saudi ARAMCO, and others companies owned and operated by the Saudi indigenes. SABIC is one of the world's leading manufacturers of chemicals, fertilizers, plastics and metals today. Saudi ARAMCO, also a world leading Oil Company that produces, manufactures, markets and ships crude oil, natural gas and petroleum products.

The time is now. We need to get our act together; define what we want, plan it and implement our strategy to achieve results. If we don’t, we will continue to get the same result such as this. We cannot expect a better result with the same mentality, it is impossible. To get a better result in that area;
-      We need different leaders with different vision.
- We need to pass the first version of the PIB and implement it .
- We have to implement strategies that will train and grow a knowledgeable workforce. The reason why Houston Texas remains energy capital of the world today is because of the human resources (knowledge) that resides in that city. No country can grow faster without growing its workforce.
- We have to shy away from politicizing the leadership of this industry, and allow credible people to pilot the affairs of this industry. 
- The industry should be free of sectional sentiments, religious sentiments, and other forms of divide and conquer mentality.
- There should be transparency, accountability and elimination of corruption.

Its funny how we glorify corruption, injustice, mediocrity and other forms of oppression in this country. With all the facts in the public eye, some people still have the boldness to defend these scumbags.

Jascoman:
However I have absolutely no control over this well orchestrated smear campaign, which is mainly directed at my mother, I therefore appeal to Nigerians not to take everything they see or read at face value.

http://thewillnigeria.com/politics/11971-Ugonna-Alison-Madueke-Says-Internet-Photos-Mischievous.html

That means we should not take this article as brilliantly presented at face value.

I guess you’re one of those benefitting from the status quo. Well, I have news for you, game over. There is no reason why Nigerians need to continue to reward corruption, nepotism, wasteful spending and mediocrity. So, the time to remove her is now.

I have not seen any work or miracle performed by the minister, so why should we retain her. All the local content, PIB, bond to fund fuel scarcity and other initiatives witnessed in the oil and gas industry in the past three years has never been her idea. She just happened to be around to implement them. To implement these initiatives, she still fails woefully. She’s the reason why we’re in this predicament called fuel subsidy scandal in the first place. Why we have massive corruption surrounding oil blocks allocation, crude oil exportation, and others. Non passage of Petroleum Industry Bill and poor implementation of local content initiative. Inefficient and excessive allocation of resources for the utilization and operation of our refineries. How can one fail an open book exam, when you have all the time in the world?

In terms of implementing these initiatives and manning petroleum industry affairs efficiently, we have other credible Nigerians that can do that. Almost every Dick and Harry in the Oil and Gas are aware of the content and objectives of the local content initiatives and PIB. Given the opportunity, it will not take them that long to achieve expected result. We should not, under any condition be clouded by the reasoning that Only Mrs. Madueke is fit to achieve the result of deregulation, PIB and take the energy industry to the promise land. Whatever work she has done in that industry, someone else can continue.

The time to remove her is now before she causes other havocs.

One united Nigeria we stand, separate Ibo, Hausa, Yoruba we all fall together.

Right on the money prof, 

Our SS, SE, SW, NE, NC governors; over to you.

Koikoi:
Because his master(Buhari) uses them to make Nigeria ungovernable

If he's the voice of the voiceless as he tries to paint himself, he shd be concerned abt the innocent lives being lost for no cause. Besides, other concerned Pastors have said one thing or the other concerning the senseless killings by boko haram. But on this issue, tunde bakare - a supposed man of God plays the dumb and shows no concern

You shd be ashamed of yourself for asking that very callous question

So for speaking against injustice, corruption that continues to plague Nigeria and Nigerians; the man should be ashamed of himself. I pity people like you. People like you are the real enemy of Nigeria and the reason why we're not progressing as a country. Because Jonathan is in power and he’s from South South, so all the corruption charges that trail his administration should be discarded and overlook.

The earlier we understand that this country is not going to divide (not this year, 2015, 2020, never), the better it will be for all of us. United we stand, divided we fall. The earlier we can all unite to combat all those structural problems that continue hold Nigerians to ransom the better we will be in the coming years. These structural problems are responsible for why Singapore, Malaysia, and all those other economies that rank on the same levels in terms of economic development as us back in the 70’s have made the leap and why we’re still in stagnation. All of us need to unite to ensure that religious sentiment, sectionalism, mediocrity, tribalism does not determine our faith as a country

This is the time to do it. Let us all come together and fight corruption, injustice, let us all come together in respective of our origin within Nigeria, and fight to demand more from our public office holder. It is our collective duty as Nigerians to analyse and critique public policies, economic policies, public appointments, and others issues that affect every citizens of the country. From strong positive criticism, you get the best out of individuals and government. Let us criticize our government objectively, with no sectional sentiment attached. I should be able to criticize Jonathan or Amaechi objectively without expecting myopic sentiment from my SS brothers and sisters. I should be able to criticize Fashola, Aregbesola or Mimiko constructively without sectional sentiment or political undertone from my SW brothers and sisters and same for the North. What is good for SS should be good for SW, NW and Nigeria. We’re not under colonial rule anymore and our attitude should continue to reflect this simple fact.

It is high time for us all to stop this divide and rule mentality. It has never worked for any region before and it will never work for any region now. What it will continue to do is breathe division, hatred and retaliation mentality. Let us all unite and move the economy forward together.

Hopefully, this request will not be swept under. Result will be achieved.

We need to do more to arrest and keep corruption under watch, increase accountability, transparency, or else fight to increase FDI and grow our economy will be an illusion.

A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has sent a request to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Malam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, to provide it with documents pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FoI) on the systemic corruption on fuel subsidy to enable it petition the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for the perpetrators to be prosecuted.


In the petition dated January 15, 2012 and signed by SERAP Executive Director Adetokunbo Mumuni, the organisation hailed Sanusi for recommending that those involved in the fuel subsidy scam to the detriment of millions of Nigerians should be arrested and prosecuted by the appropriate authorities.

“This request is made to obtain the necessary documents for us to swiftly send a petition to the EFCC to achieve the objectives which you have articulated for many years, that is, to bring about the effective prosecution of suspected perpetrators of the subsidy scam,” it said.


The organisation argued that if the problems in the fuel subsidy system were not fully and urgently addressed and suspected perpetrators prosecuted, it would continue to have a devastating effect on investment in the oil and gas sector while also discouraging the building of refineries. It also expressed concern that while N250billion was allocated for fuel ‘subsidy in 2011, by the end of October 2011, over N1.3trillion had been spent.

“Having found that no supplementary appropriation was submitted to the National Assembly by President Goodluck Jonathan, we would be grateful for information on who authorised the release of the sum of N1.26 trillion, which was paid by the CBN under your management,” the organisation added.


The organization also said that, “We agree with you that this raises serious suspicion of corruption in the fuel subsidy system. We believe that this situation is a major contributory factor for the situation of extreme poverty in the country, which in itself is a violation of human dignity, inhibiting the full and effective enjoyment of human rights.”

Brilliant piece.

I know some people are going to come here and try to politicize this write up instead of disputing facts embedded in the write up.

NLC, it is up to you to do Nigerians bidding. Negotiate to secure corrupt free environment, accountability, transparency, to cut wasteful spending, regressive policies, mediocrity, passage of PIB, blockage of fund siphoning and other issues that affect every commoners in our country.

Mallam Ribadu is spot on. This is an opportunity for us to fight against excessive spending in government, mediocrity, injustice, accountability, transparency and all other structural reforms that will progress our economy. This protest is more than fuel subsidy. I hope NLC understands these issues and are willing to push for these issues during their negotiation with FG. I hope NLC at this point will do more to articulate what we're fighting for, grant more interviews to create awareness specifically around issues raised by Ribadu and continue to rally people to fight for these causes and not just on fuel subsidies alone.

If after this protest, all we're able to resolve is fuel subsidy issues. Then, i will conclude that the whole protest is a waste of time, waste of resources, and NLC is a fraud that does not share the plight of the people. Also, that the Cabals are the one controlling the NLC leadership as speculated by the FG.

Well said Mr. Sanusi.

I think it is about time the government create a new PR department to reorient citizens mind. Majority of Nigerians don't read, they're gullible and ready to follow the media hype blindly. What needs to be done is to create an environment, through necessary channels to reach target masses; where government will preach and support Whistleblowers in every industry, economic theories as it affects Nigeria / Nigerians can be debated, preach about discipline attitude and why this is good for common Nigerians.

I support Deregulation because i understand and believe in its embedded benefits. We cannot be clammoring for change on one hand and on the other hand remain hellbent on paying the price. We cannot be pushing to be among the best 20 economies in the next 10 years, and still remain primitive in terms of our economic reform. We have to be ready to make tough decisions for the progress of Nigeria. Change is not free, its not easy and it requires a lot of sacrifice. No pain, No gain. We have to be willing to sacrifice today for better tomorrow.

If these change will bring forth increase employment, increase revenue for the government, Innovation, improvement in human resources, increase economic development, increase political development, and other benefits on the long run. Then, i will say the time for deregulation was yesterday.

I have never been a supporter of Mr. Johnathan in any way. I supported Buhari in the last election. But, this policy is about Nigeria not about any individual or political organization. lets us all get it right for once in our country. The time is now.

Your analysis is flawed. While refinery is not the most profitable business venture, it is profitable. Thats why companies like Conoco Phillips, Marathon Oil Company would rather split their company and operate their refienries than to sell out to others. Thats why you have companies like Citgo, Valero and others that rely only on refinery business for their business existence.

In the US, the government does not operate refineries. All they do is to provide conducive regulatory environment for refinery businesses to thrive. I cannot for once remember the last time US have fuel scarcity, or when the price becomes too unbearable (because it follows the price of crude oil, which everybody follows). If government want to continue to kill and haemorrage that industry of funds, innovation, proper management, growth and other benefits, they should continue to micro manage it. The only way to get the refinery industry in Nigeria moving is by way of government hands off, I repeat, government does not have any business being in that business at all. Their business should revolve around taxation and regulation.

paragonpro:
Contrary to what the government wants us to believe, there is no where in the world where the price of fuel is left to the vagaries of market forces. The us governments over the years had been actively involved with oil politics in order to regulate the price of fuel. So much so that the government spends billions of dollars if not trillions in wars to ensure they have access to cheap crude for its citizens. Russia is even worse, they arbitrarily determine the price of petrol and gas and sell to other European countries at what ever price they choose. They even inflate prices to countries that is not towing their line.

Refineries is not a profitable business, it is mainly used as a political tool, a form of tax tool or a social security tool, depending on the goals of the government. No private person will invest 200 billion dollars to build a medium sized refinery with the very long pay back time. they would rather invest in stock markets or government bonds.
The Nigeria government cannot and I repeat cannot shy away from directly being involved in refineries. They should earn their huge pay for a change.

Who will take over after his impeachment? Sambo? Birds of the same feather

While i support the fuel subsidy removal. I hope necessary measures are being put in place to cushion effect fuel scarcity within the country. The effect and result of this can send the price of petrol as high as about N300 - 400/L based on people hoarding petroleum products so that they can sell at high price.

I hope the regulators understand this problem can happen, and they are putting measures in place to checkmate it.

What is the status of this project. While i understand that it takes about 2- 3 years to complete a full Engineering, Procurement and Construction of a power project. I would like to know what stage they're in right now. I think it is about time government established a think - tank group or websites that will continue to furnish us with blow-by-blow details / updates on major power projects, revamps and other developments

Have we achieved our 600 MW increase in power yet?

Ovamboland:
Nigerian crude per barrel cost is well below $5. For instance Agbami field development cost about $3.5 bn and recoverable deposit is about 1bn barrel, do the maths and see these sources
http://www.offshore-technology.com/projects/agbami/
http://www.gasandoil.com/news/africa/ee207d7b12c4523504df1ee7ed20c538
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oil_fields

Your method of calculating cost of operation is not accurate. Don’t forget that, that’s just the fixed cost excluding operating cost. And, because they say 1bln recoverable does not mean you’re actually going to get that amount.
Why is it that the Chinese don’t like to develop new oil block most of the time? Why is it that they’ll rather acquire developed field, and pay a premium for its acquisition? It’s because it can be very expensive to develop new field. Sometimes, companies get lucky because they’ve prepared themselves properly and they don’t see most of the inherent risk they’ve build in their model. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, or other developers can’t see it.
The author of this article fails to account for this aspect in his analysis.

Ovamboland:
In addition for most oil fields, the Nigerian government through NAPIMS-NNPC pays 50 - 60 % of the development cost and so technically owns that percentage of oil output. The government through NNPC also owns NPDC whose output is 100% owned. I am sure the government can fin 450,000 barrels needed for local consumption and sell at prices it deemed fit depending on it's economic policies. There is no need to lie about a non existent subsidy

Don’t forget that all these projects are project financed. Project finance is usually a highly leverage, stand alone financing requiring lower upfront cash from the partners including our own NNPC. If the project fails, no partners will be held liable to repay the loan. But, the stand alone financing model has a lot of built in default penalties, risk coverage that the partners have to abide by before they can get funding because of the inherent built in risk taking by the financiers. These risk coverage mitigation, economics backed by business plans most of the time dictates who buys the product, how and when. If we go against some of these coverage’s, by making decisions that affect Debt Service Coverage Ratio, or we forgot to make our cash calls. It can increase the risk of doing business in the country and can also increase our cost of raising financing from oversees.
Your argument implying that government covers 50-60% upfront cost is not accurate. Our upfront cost usually revolves around our prorated shares of the general down payment, share of escrow account funding and others.