The price of automotive gas oil, better known as diesel, spiked to N290 per litre this week. The surge is on the back of rise in the price of crude oil which sold at $75.55 per barrel at the international market at 11:11 PM (GMT) on Friday. There has been a rally in the price of crude oil as major economies reopen economic activities. However, the prolonged high crude prices will ultimately feed into a climb in fuel landing cost for users in Nigeria — meaning an increase in price of diesel which is not subsided like petrol. The…
Author: Temitope N.
The senate has recommended that the importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly known as petrol, be limited to holders of local refining licence. This is according to the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) passed by the senate. Holders of crude oil refining licences in Nigeria include Dangote Oil Refinery Company, Waltersmith Refining & Petrochemical Company Limited, OPAC Refineries, Niger Delta Petroleum Resources, BUA Refinery & Petrochemicals and Edo Refinery and Petrochemical Company Limited. At the moment, companies registered under the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) as providers of goods and services in the downstream sector of the Nigerian oil and gas…
Royal Dutch Shell has abandoned its argument that the oil pollution lawsuit filed against it by the Ogale and Bille communities in Rivers state, be heard in Nigeria rather than the UK. Bloomberg reports that Shell’s legal team refused to return to the High Court of England with the argument that the five-year-old case would be better heard in Nigeria, according to the parties in the case, conceding that the Nigerian subsidiary will now be joined to claims made in England against the parent company. In a landmark ruling on February 12, the UK Supreme Court allowed the communities to…
The Kano Electricity Distribution Company (KEDCO) has raised alarm over increasing theft of transformer oil and cables in its franchise. A statement signed by KEDCO Head of Communications, Mr Ibrahim Shawai, on Monday in Kano, urged communities and individuals to assist in tracking the criminals. “The problem has almost become a yearly event when hoodlums take advantage of rainy season to steal the company’s equipment and installation. This needs to be stopped. “Economic sabotage of this act has always affected electricity supply. “Whenever transformer oil and cables are stolen from any transformer, the act will deny customers of their comfort…
Elon Musk took the stand on Monday to defend Tesla Inc’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity against a lawsuit by shareholders seeking to recoup the $2.6 billion the company paid for the ailing solar panel maker. Soon after taking the stand, Musk denied the deal was a bailout of SolarCity as Tesla shareholders have alleged. “Since it was a stock-for-stock transaction and I owned almost exactly the same percentage of both there was no financial gain,” he said, responding to questions from his attorney. Musk’s testimony kicks off a two-week trial in Wilmington, Delaware, before Vice Chancellor Joseph Slights, who will…
Royal Dutch Shell has given up its struggle to move a Niger Delta oil spill case, involving thousands of the region’s residents, from the UK to Nigeria, Bloomberg said Monday. The decision comes on the heels of two recently lost suits for Shell. In January a Dutch court directed the supermajor to pay compensation to residents of its operational base in the country’s far south for an oil spill action, a couple of decades ago. Members of Nigeria’s Ogle and Bile communities numbering around 40,000 said the energy giant and its local unit, SPDC, are both accountable for oil contamination…
The Nigerian government does not plan to privatise the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), has said. Yunana Malo, Director, Energy Department, of the BPE said at a media conference on Monday in Abuja, that the bureau would instead hand over the company to a private manager on a concession arrangement to get maximum value. He said transmission was the weak link in the power reform, as generation which was privatised had since attracted investments, making it more efficient. He said the generation capacity had improved, adding that 60 per cent of the distribution segment…
TikTok has said it will use automation to detect and remove many of the videos that violate its policies. According to engadget.com, for the past year, the service has been testing and tweaking systems to find and take down such content. It will roll out those systems in the US and Canada over the next few weeks. To start with, the algorithms will be on the lookout for posts that violate policies related to the safety of minors, violence, graphic content, nudity, sex, illegal activity and regulated goods. If the systems detect a violation, they’ll yank the video immediately and…
Restrictions on movement and reduction in the handling of physical cash because of the COVID-19 pandemic caused mobile money transaction volumes in sub-Saharan to reach $490bn in 2020, Visa has said. This was a 23 per cent increase from 2019, according to a report titled ‘Innovation, partnership, and co-creation key to driving digital payment growth in sub-Saharan Africa’ by Senior Vice President and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa at Visa, Aida Diarra. The company said in the last decade, digital technology, including payments, had witnessed tremendous growth. The report said, “Innovation and technological advances are bringing exciting opportunities for financial inclusion…
Experts have highlighted the need to boost Nigeria’s services exports and encourage business services outsourcing in order to spur job creation and economic development. A senior analyst at SBM Intelligence, Joachim MacEbong, said Nigeria must learn to be export-focused to achieve prosperity for its large population. He said, “There is a lot of potential for business process outsourcing. However, Nigeria is still not friendly to the foreign investment that could create jobs for youths who are struggling with unemployment. “We need to address our hostility to foreign capital. Having more French speakers could help Nigeria take advantage of the AfCFTA…