500,000bpd drop in oil production due to flooding – DPR

Nigeria’s daily crude oil production for the third quarter of 2012 dropped by 500,000 barrels as a result of production shut-down caused by the ravaging floods in some parts of the country, the Department of Petroleum Resources has said. The department said the actual crude oil (plus condensate) production of the nation was 2.5 million barrels per day for the period.

Some of the companies hit by the flood, according to DPR, were marginal field operator, Sterling Energy, Total Exploration and Producing and Agip, among others. The floods were no threats to oil and gas assets in the country in the long-run, as production would gradually pick up as the floods subsided.

Nigeria’s reserves as at January 1, 2012 were 31.170 billion barrels for oil, 5.018 billion barrels for condensate; 92.6 trillion cubic feet of associated gas and 90.150 tcf for non-associated gas.

Nigeria’s stolen crude oil goes to Balkans, Singapore

Former Nigerian Ambassador to Brazil, Dr. Patrick Dele Cole has revealed that the main buyers of the estimated 180,000 barrels of crude oil stolen each day in Nigeria are based in the Balkans and Singapore.

Cole is currently spearheading a campaign titled: “Stop The Theft” to end the practice. The campaign is seeking to have ships tracked by satellite and for the money trail to be exposed. He said that about 10 per cent of the snatched oil was being refined locally by gangs operating in the delta’s creeks and swamps. The rest is mainly going to criminal networks in Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria, or to Singapore, which is the world’s top refiner.

Sale of PHCN Companies: Southern Electricity flouted due process

Of all the consortia that participated in the bid opening for the sale of PHCN Companies, Southern Electricity was the only one that submitted multiple commercial bids for the same disco. This disclosure was made by the Chairman, Technical Committee of the National Council on Privatization (NCP), Mr. Atedo Peterside.

The governors of Delta, Edo and Ekiti States had at a joint news conference in Abuja vehemently rejected the choice of Vigeo Power Consortium as the preferred bidder for the Benin Disco and described the bid processes organized by the BPE as “highly fraudulent, not transparent and representing some racketeering interests”. Part of their contention was that Vigeo lacked the necessary technical competence and capacity to run the Benin Disco. Specifically, the Governor of Edo State, Adams Oshiomhole, had claimed that the process was rigged to favour Vigeo as Southern Electricity scored 898 points to Vigeo’s 847 points during the technical evaluation of the bids and ought to have emerged the preferred bidder.

However, Peterside disclosed that Southern Electricity’s envelope was discovered to have contained two different commercial bids, both of which were signed by one Mr. Matthew Edevbie. He said: “The first bid was dubbed the ‘primary bid’, while the other was dubbed an ‘alternate bid’. This was a clear contravention of the RFP. While reaffirming that the entire transaction followed due process and was governed by the provisions of the RFP, Peterside noted that close to 90 per cent of the seven members that make up Southern Electricity comprises private sector companies that are not owned directly or indirectly by the governments of Delta, Edo, Ekiti and Ondo States.