Daily Watch – Crude production to spike in 2018, Aviation workers hate airport concessioning

20th September 2017

  • Nigeria’s daily oil production will significantly increase by Q4 2018 when the Egina Project comes online. Total’s Deputy Managing Director and principal partner of the Egina Project, Ahmadu Musa-Kida, who said this at the celebration of the Egina manifold sail away in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, said that when completed, the Egina project would add 200,000 barrels per day to Nigeria’s daily crude oil production. According to the Chairman of Aveon Offshore and one of the project’s contractors, Tein George, the project, which costs over $30 million, was delivered ahead of schedule with zero loss time injury in about 5.5 million man-hours.
  • The NBS says Oyo, Ondo and Nasarawa state residents paid the lowest amount for petrol in the month of August 2017. A report released by the statistics agency in Abuja recently suggests that average price paid by consumers for premium motor spirit (petrol) decreased by 1.9 percent year-on-year and by -2.5 percent month-on-month to ₦144.4 in August 2017 from ₦148.2 in July 2017. The report also indicated that the average price of petrol for August, which was ₦144.4 also decreased by 1.9 percent year-on-year compared to the ₦147 which was the price for August 2016. Diesel’s average price for August 2017 was at ₦196.23 and decreased by 0.15 percent year-on-year from the ₦197 average price for August 2016.
  • Aviation workers yesterday paralysed activities at the country’s major airports to express their opposition to the concession of Lagos and Abuja airports. The Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (ATSSSAN) and the National Union of Air Transport Employees (NUATE) have rejected the proposed concession, describing it as fraudulent. The Federal Government had last week announced the concession of Murtala Muhammed Airport (MMA), the busiest airport in the country and the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport (NAIA), Abuja, the second busiest. Addressing the protesting workers, NUATE’s Secretary General, Olayinka Abioye said the concessions were not the solution to the infrastructural decay at the airports, blaming the development on political interference. According to him, major aviation agencies include the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT) in Zaria were hampered by political interference, alleging that the aviation ministry had earmarked about ₦659 million for the concession project works, of which ₦125 million was allotted for travelling for marketing alone.
  • Unity Bank says it has disbursed ₦24 billion to farmers through the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme introduced by the FG. The lender, in a statement, noted that it had effectively keyed into the various CBN intervention funds to boost its agriculture portfolio and was a bank that drives agribusiness as its major strategic business focus. According to the statement, Unity Bank is currently the fourth largest provider of single-digit interest loans (9% maximum) to agribusiness under the CBN’s Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme. The CACS is a sub-component of the Federal Government’s Commercial Agriculture Development Programme and it is aimed at promoting commercial agricultural enterprises in Nigeria targeting the promotion/production of cash crops, food crops, poultry, livestock, aquaculture, processing, storage, farm input supplies and marketing for agricultural commercial enterprises with an asset base of between ₦50 million and ₦100 million.
  • Nigeria plans to auction ₦135 billion ($442 million) in bonds next week, the DMO said on Tuesday. The debt office plans to sell ₦35 billion of bonds due in 2021 and ₦50 billion each of bonds due in 2027 and in 2037, using a Dutch auction system. Settlement is expected two days after the sale. The bonds are re-openings of previous issues. The CBN on Wednesday announced plans to sell ₦140.9 billion worth of Treasury bills at an auction next week. It has a series of debt issues lined up this year, including a ₦100 billion naira debut domestic Sukuk which it is marketing to fund road projects and a ₦20 billion “green bond”.