Shell, Eni executives in $1bn Nigeria bribery case Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Eni SpA face additional corruption allegations over a Nigerian oil deal, after the Federal Government said in a London lawsuit that it believed a handful of executives, including Chief Executive Officers, were tied to more than $1bn in bribery payments. The Federal Government had in December last year filed a $1.1bn lawsuit against Shell and Eni in a commercial court in London in relation to a 2011 oilfield deal in Nigeria. In court documents filed in early April, the Nigerian government said the oil companies’ senior managers agreed in 2011 to make a large payment for an offshore oil block, Oil Prospecting Licence 245, understanding the money would trickle down to government officials and senior executives from both companies, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. The filing singles out individuals who haven’t previously been caught up in the scandal, including a former Shell CEO, ...
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Nigeria: The Next Big Frontier for Rural Electricity Access Mark Amaza and Chibuikem Agbaegbu Igu, a farming village in Nigeria of about 4000 people, has never had electricity, despite being located in Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, just an hour’s drive from the seat of Nigeria's Federal Government, Abuja. For villages like Igu, getting access to energy has until now remained a far-fetched dream. But rural electrification in Nigeria is about to get a new lease of life, through the deployment of decentralized renewable energy (DRE) solutions by the country’s states, as well as by the federal government. For years, states have been hamstrung by a lack of awareness of what options exist, especially regarding DRE solutions such as mini-grids and standalone solar systems. The situation began in 1991, when the Nigerian government began to make conscious efforts to expand rural electrification in the country by connecting the headquarters of all its local gov...
Power firm Greenlight Planet, targets 30m Nigerians by 2030 Greenlight Planet, a solar home energy company, said it has delivered clean energy to more than two million individuals in Nigeria, while focusing on rapid innovation of its product and distribution strategy. On a mission to power the underserved, Greenlight Planet began distributing its Sun KingTM solar home energy products in the country in 2011. Speaking on its journey in Nigeria so far, Global Business Leader, Sun King-Easy-Buy, Dhaval Radia, said: “Over the last seven years, we have sold more than 500,000 life-changing Sun KingTM solar solutions in Nigeria through strategic distribution partnerships and our own pay-as-you-go distribution channel. Customers have been quick to recognise that an investment in a Sun King product more than pays for itself over time, with several customers experiencing dramatic improvements in household savings, increased productivity for their small businesses and additional study ti...
European Investment Bank Sign $25M Solar Funding Pact for Nigeria, Others The European Investment Bank (EIB–the EU bank) yesterday, signed a $25m financing installation of off-grid solar systems with the light to strengthen access to energy in Nigeria and four other African countries. Vice-President of the bank, Ambroise Fayolle, who announced the project at the ongoing 6th Africa CEO Forum in Abidjan, Cote ‘Ivoire, listed other countries to include Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, said the energy would be supplied via solar kits that do not require a grid, which are easy to use and inexpensive for users, to come in a pre-payment system. He stated that particular emphasis will be placed on rural and suburban populations and micro-entrepreneurs when it eventually materialise. According to him, the financing will enable d.light design to develop the installation of solar kits – including not only panels and lamps, but also low-energy equipment (radios, TVs, etc.) –...
TCN: Power Transmission Contracts Top List of Abandoned Infrastructure Projects Culled from Thisday Of all the infrastructure projects that were procured but abandoned and left to rot away over the years, those contracted by the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) to expand the country’s transmission network are top on the list of these abandoned projects, the interim Managing Director of the TCN, Mr. Usman Mohammed, has disclosed. Mohammed, stated that these abandoned TCN projects were scattered across the country, and that a lot of them had largely been paid for by the government. He said the contractors for them were mostly Nigerians without the required capacities but selected by influential people in government.According to him, this has cost the TCN both in terms of finances and goodwill especially within multilateral agencies that are always willing to provide funds for its network expansion. Mohammed said these at the weekend when two high-end transmission infra...
Oil and Gas July 12, 2017 Nigeria Gas Flaring Declined In 2016, Says W/Bank Nigeria’s gas flaring declined by about 15 percent last year, according to the latest data from both the Federal Government and World Bank. The data indicated that flaring declined less sharply t h a n Nig e r i a’s o i l production, which suggests there’s a risk that flaring might rise if oil output recovers and stabilises. Th e data from the Ministry of Petroleum Resources said that 771mn ft3/d – or 18 percent of the country’s 4.33bn ft3/d associated gas produced at 215 oilfields – was routinely flared in 2016. Accordingly, that equates to a 2016 flaring total of 281.4bn ft³ (8bn m³), which is 15 percent less than the 330bn ft³ flared in 2015, according to the ministry. Also, the World Bank data, release last week, based on satellite imaging rather than metering on the ground, also show a reduction in Nigeria’s flaring: to 7.315bn m³ in 2016 – even lower than the m...
Total sells 2m solar lamps, targets 5m by 2020 Total Nigeria Plc said it has sold 2 million solar lamps worldwide with target to sell five million by year 2020 According to the oil marketing firm, of the 2 million lamps, 90 per cent of the lamps sold in Africa and are expect to have brought relieve to the lives of 10 million people in the continent. More than 1 billion people do not have access to electricity. To help remedy that, the oil firm said it launched in 2011, a line of photovoltaic solar lamps, to provide affordable access to energy for communities in emerging economies. Designed for households that lack access to electricity, Total solar lamps supply affordable, reliable, clean energy. Some of the lamps can also be used to charge small electric devices such as phones. “These solar lamps are a safer and better replacement for less effective and more expensive lighting methods like candles, disposable batteries and kerosene. “We managed to reach ...