The main players in Nigeria’s oil industry have spent at least the past 18 months vying to influence a proposed shake-up of sub-Saharan Africa’s biggest energy sector.
The draft Petroleum Industry Bill is evolving into the most comprehensive overhaul of the country’s oil sector since the first crude departed Nigeria half a century ago.
But behind the tussle over taxes and regulation is a battle that could lead to big changes in who controls the world’s 10th largest reserves. From local towns to Chinese oil groups, there are a growing number of claims to a limited resource. Three western oil companies – ExxonMobil and Chevron of the US and Europe’s Royal Dutch Shell – appear ready to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to ensure that expiring leases to some of their Nigerian blocks are renewed, though such payments are not required by law. Read the rest of this entry »
As Ghana prepares to pump oil in the second half of 2010, hopes are rising, both among hard-pressed market traders at home and in the far-flung Diaspora, where Ghanaians are quitting jobs in American banks to head back to an optimistic homeland.
Nigeria’s state-run oil firm Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Friday reassured Oando, ONGC Mittal Energy (OMEL), and other oil firms that it fully supported building the OPEC member’s first crude refinery in more than 20 years.
Sub-Saharan African markets are attracting interest from foreign fund managers seeking to diversify risks in their global portfolio. Andre DeSimone, Executive Director at Kestrel Capital tells us why Africa’s stock markets continue to perform remarkably well despite their small size and low liquidity.
Bourse Africa, a unit of Financial Technologies, plans to set up an electronic exchange to trade African commodities futures by the second half of next year, Director of Strategy Adam Gross said. 
