Crude oil for August 2009 delivery down 14 cents at $61.40 a barrel ;London Brent increased 16 cents to $63.25 ; Out of a total of 177 countries that were surveyed by a respected US group, Nigeria ranked 15th
Posted on July 16, 2009 – 4:16 pm | by oilandgaspress.com
Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Fashola (SAN) yesterday expressed condolence to the families of the officers and men of the Armed Forces who were victims of the recent attack on the Atlas Cove jetty by suspected MEND members even as he described the development as unfortunate, un-strategic and ill–advised. According to Fashola who addressed newsmen at Lagos House, Marina after an emergency meeting of the State Security Council, the attack raises very new questions about what the agitation in the Niger Delta is all about. He said that Lagos as the headquarters of the national press has been the medium of agitation and as a melting pot of nationalities; the people of Lagos have protected and hosted even displaced Niger Deltans.
Arguing that it was quite unfair to have turned on Lagos, the Governor explained that the State itself has been a victim of years of neglect as a former federal capital which continues to serve as the host community for all ethnic communities and as economic nerve centre of the country. Wondering why Lagos should become a target of attack, the Governor asked rhetorically: “Is Lagos not also a victim of years of neglect? Is this an agitation without limits, is a friendly and host State fair game?” Assuring law abiding citizens of his administration’s preparedness to protect their life and property at all times, Governor Fashola said: “If this was a mistake, we expect that it must never repeat itself as we will respond to this new security threat appropriately”. Describing crime as a business, Governor Fashola said the State Government in partnership with the Private Sector and the security agencies is prepared to outspend and outrun all persons with criminal intents in order to run them out of the business of crime.
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Henry Okah, the Nigerian militant leader released from jail this week, said he isn’t sure he can stop the insurgency in Nigeria’s oil-producing region. Okah said he needs to meet with other rebel commanders before he can discuss the situation, and his priority is getting medical treatment. “I’ll have to go into the creeks and meet the commanders,” Okah said in a telephone interview from Abuja today. “I’ve been away for 23 months, and it’s only after I have had time to talk to those involved that I can say anything.” Okah, 44, was arrested in Luanda, the Angolan capital, in September 2007 suspicion of gun-running. He was deported without charge to Nigeria, where he was put on trial for treason and gun-running. He faced death on conviction.
He is suffering from a kidney ailment, his lawyers say. The rebel leader was released two days ago by Nigerian authorities after all charges against him were withdrawn. MEND has intensified attacks against oil installations in the region since the military began an offensive in May. The rebels have claimed 24 raids on oil installations and one on a chemical tanker since May 25. Oil production has fallen to less than half its capacity because of the fighting, with the country pumping 1.6 million barrels a day, compared with capacity of 3.2 million, the government said May 22.
Communities in the Niger Delta, a 70,000-square-kilometer (27,000-square-mile) maze of rivers and creeks forming one of the world’s biggest remaining areas of mangroves, are among Nigeria’s poorest, with unemployment over 90 percent in some areas. The region contains more than 600 oil and gas fields linked to pumping stations and terminals by about 6,000 kilometers (3,729 miles) of pipelines, according to the International Energy Agency.
Since MEND started its assault in January 2006, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Chevron Corp. and Exxon Mobil Corp. have suffered attacks on plants and pipelines
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Out of a total of 177 countries that were surveyed by a respected US group, Nigeria ranked 15th in the index of failed countries in the world, up three places from 18th position in a similar exercise in 2008; and 17th in 2007. The newly released Failed State Index 2009 was published by the United States think-tank and an independent research organisation, the Fund for Peace, and the magazine Foreign Policy. This is the 5th edition, since 2005. According to the detailed Index, Somalia emerged the most failed state, for the second time running, while Norway emerged the best or most sustainable state. The index’s ranks are based on twelve indicators of state vulnerability - four social, two economic and six political.
The indicators are not designed to forecast when states may experience violence or collapse. Instead, they are meant to measure a state’s vulnerability to collapse or conflict. Out of the 15 most failed nations surveyed, ten were African nations. These include Somalia (1st), Zimbabwe (2nd), Sudan (3rd), Chad (4th), Dem. Rep. of Congo (5th), Central African Republic (8th), Guinea (9th), Ivory Coast (11th), Kenya (14th), and Nigeria (15th). The best five nations, which were described as having the most sustainable state include Norway (177), Finland (176), Sweden (175), Switzerland (174), and Ireland (173). Ghana emerged the best state in Africa, ranked 124 and classified as moderate state, while USA was 159th and UK 161 on the survey list. The Crisis States Research Centre defines a “failed state” as a condition of “state collapse” – i.e., a state that can no longer perform its basic security and development functions and that has no effective control over its territory.
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Neptune Marine Services has secured a range of new projects in the North Sea, Australia, Brazil and Iran valued at about $25m.
All projects are scheduled for completion in the first half of 2010.
The projects include a NEPSYS repair project for a customer operating in the North Sea, fabrication works out of the company’s Aberdeen workshops for an offshore project in Brazil and a range of diving and repair projects for several oil and gas projects in Australia.
It will also carry out freespan rectification and grouting services in Iran and Australia.
Neptune says the Brazil contract will allow the company to establish a new foothold in the region, while allowing the company to further spread its international reach.
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Seabed-to-surface engineering and construction offshore oil and gas contractor Acergy will provide flexible laying services to the Petroleo Brasileiro’s Polar Queen installation vessel.
The contract will start in 2010.
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The Nigerian federal government on Thursday rejected all the preconditions canvassed by Nigeria’s major militant group in the oil-rich Niger Delta region the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) before peace talks can commence.
Godwin Abe, newly appointed Nigeria’s Defense Minister, stated this to reporters in Abuja, noting that the government is willing to dialogue with anybody and relate with any person or group that can bring peace to this country but it is unwilling to accept any precondition before talks.
Abe, who is also the chairman of the Presidential Amnesty Panel, was reacting to a question about the militants’ demand that the Nigerian federal government withdraw the Joint Task Force (JTF) as a precondition for rapprochement.
According to him, the ceasefire declared by the militants is a good sign, adding that the government expects that all aggrieved Nigerians within or without the Niger Delta would embrace this amnesty in good faith and in its totality.
He affirmed that the government rejects all preconditions canvassed by the militants, one of which is their request for the withdrawal of troops from the oil-rich region.
“They cannot give conditions to Government because Government was not invited to come there in the first instance, so Government will take decisions that affect the deployment of troops, until when conditions in the Niger Delta become ripe enough and law and order is comfortably restored,” the Lagos-based Next newspaper quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, spokesperson and member of the Presidential Amnesty Panel, Timiebi Koripamo-Agary, while reacting to the ceasefire, declared that the ceasefire was a result of her panels’ contact with the militants.
The group had on Wednesday threatened to call off the truce following information that the JTF had dispatched seven gun boats with heavily armed troops from Warri and are heading to one of the camps located around the Delta and Ondo State border.
It warned that if the information from a very reliable source within the JTF happens to be true, the ceasefire will be called off with immediate effect.
But JTF Spokesman, Rabe Abubakar, said there is no troop deployment, as the military is implementing faithfully the amnesty. (Xinhua)
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An Indian company Parrogate Investments has invested 4 million U.S. dollars in an oil refinery and cotton ginnery in the suburbs of Zimbabwe’s capital city of Harare.
The oil processing plant, which has created 400 jobs, is expected to begin production by the end of this month, according to reports by The Herald on Thursday.
The company is 100 percent owned by India-based Mid-Indian Industries with more than 100 years experience in textiles and edible oil production.
It operates seven textile mills in India and two ginneries in Zambia.
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Costa Rican Oil Refinery (RECOPE) and the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) on Wednesday signed a supplement contract for the establishment of a joint venture to build an oil refinery.
The RECOPE and the CNPC signed an agreement in late 2008 to form a joint venture, but the deal was not ratified by the Costa Rican Comptroller’s Office, which said the joint venture would violate the RECOPE’s legal monopoly on oil refining and distribution.
RECOPE Executive President Jose Leon Desanti told Xinhua that with the supplement contract, it is clear there is no rupture on the monopoly of the state-owned giant and it also set the shares of both companies at the joint venture.
The supplement contract will be subject to the Comptroller’s Office for further review. (Xinhua)
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Tags: Central African Republic, Chad, Costa Rican, Dem. Rep. of Congo, Distribution, federal capital, Finland, Guinea, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lagos, nations, Niger Delta, NIGERIA, norway, Oil-Refining, Somalia, state, SUDAN, Sustainable, Sweden, Switzerland, treason, Zimbabwe
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