Daily Watch – GE and Shell seal Afam VI service deal, GTB tweaks 737 service charges
16th February 2018
- Junior oil minister, Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu, said he was “not ruffled” by the recent oil price decline and OPEC member nations needed to focus on their production costs. “OPEC needs to just focus on itself and focus on what it needs to do and forget what is happening in shale … Every OPEC producer must work hard to be a least-cost producer,” he said. Oil prices were trading at $64.40 per barrel on Thursday, just over 9 percent below the highs this year above $71 per barrel reached in January. Nigeria produces 2.07 million barrels per day, including 1.71 million bpd of crude and 362,000 bpd of condensates.
- A court has set a hearing over a disputed 2011 oilfield deal for June 18, the financial crimes watchdog said on Thursday, part of a string of international corruption probes into the purchase. The case relates to a purchase of the offshore OPL 245 oilfield in Nigeria by oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and Eni in 2011. At the core of the case is a $1.3 billion payment from Shell and Eni to secure the block from Malabu Oil and Gas, allegedly controlled by former Nigerian oil minister Dan Etete. The FG has also filed a claim in Britain against JPMorgan Chase over its alleged involvement in the deal. The EFCC said that the defendants are accused of being part of a scheme to defraud the government of ₦1.1 billion. The Nigerian court case is now awaiting the arraignment of the defendants, including the former attorney general, ex-ministers of justice and oil and various senior managers, current and former, from Shell and Eni, the EFCC said.
- General Electric’s Power Service has signed a Multi-year Service Agreement with Shell Petroleum Development Company for its 650MW Afam VI combined cycle power plant located in Rivers State. With the agreement, Afam VI Plant which provides enough electricity equal to power over three million Nigerian homes at peak performance is expected to improve its availability, reliability, and output for up to 200,000 Nigerian homes, while decreasing its operational costs. The agreement will cover planned maintenance for the three existing GE GT13E2 gas turbines as well as one GE steam turbine. In addition, the order includes GE’s MXL2 upgrades to help increase the plant capacity by up to 30MW while increasing its efficiency.
- Fitch Ratings has said that if Nigerian banks adopt a more market-based presentation of foreign-currency assets, liabilities and profit-and-loss items, small banks would not be able to meet their capital adequacy requirements as specified by the regulatory authorities. In a statement released Thursday, the rating agency noted that financial statements with FC items translated more in line with market exchange rates would give a more realistic representation of banks’ FC positions and capital at risk from a further naira depreciation. It said in the event that the naira depreciates to ₦450/$ in the market, the bigger banks may withstand the scenario without impairment on their capital adequacy requirements.
- GTBank has announced a significant reduction in it USSD (*737#) money transfer charge to the other banks. The lender in an email sent to its customers Thursday informed them of the reduction in the convenience fee when they transfer money to other banks using *737# service. “This means that you will now pay ₦40, half the original fee, when you transfer money to other banks via *737#,” the email read. Prior to the announcement, the bank has been charged N80 as commission on each transaction initiated to other banks. The bank in its unaudited result for the period ended 30 September 2017 made ₦39.677 billion on fee and commission, which contributed 32 percent to ₦125.578 billion in profits for the accounting period.