Daily watch – Eni looking to leave Nigeria, Dangote gets American training

31st July 2015

  • Eni SpA, Italy’s largest oil company is considering selling part or all of its onshore Nigerian operations as it seeks to divest peripheral businesses. Eni’s wholly owned subsidiary in the country, Nigerian Agip Oil Company, operates under a joint-venture agreement with the NNPC and ConocoPhillips. NAOC also operates two onshore exploration licenses. Depending on what Eni decides to sell, the transaction may raise from $2 billion to $5 billion. Although Eni has asked advisers to look at options for the assets, which include interests in oil and natural-gas fields in the country, it could still also decide to hold on to the operations.
  • Meanwhile, Royal Dutch Shell is cutting 6,500 jobs across its global operations and will reduce capital spending by 20 per cent this year, as the oil company takes dramatic action in response to the plunge in oil prices. The firm said its investment this year would decline $7 billion from last year’s levels to about $30 billion, a bigger drop than was forecast three months ago, as it axed and postponed new projects. Shell expects to make even further reductions to operating costs in 2016. Globally, about $200 billion of spending on major oil and gas projects has now been deferred since crude prices began falling, a decline that accelerated when OPEC opted not to cut output in the face of soaring US production.
  • The United States Trade and Development Agency has announced a grant of $997 million as training support for the proposed refinery by the Dangote Group. The grant is expected to fund the training of more than 100 staff on the use of UOP technology licensing and engineering services. According to the company, the most critical success factor for project is getting the right quality of human capital to run the plant.
  • Nestle Nigeria’s half-year pretax profit fell 24% to N10.6 billion ($53.3 million), the food and beverage maker said on Thursday. Revenue fell to N65.92 billion for the six months to June 30 from N67.20 billion, the firm said in filings to the Nigeria Stock Exchange.