Vitol are the largest global independent trader of crude oil and refined petroleum products. They also have a long established joint venture (JV) called Calson with NNPC based in the offshore tax haven of Bermuda. Their  intimate relationship with NNPC has seen them beneficiaries of supply contracts, including the infamous Direct Sal...

Nigeria have been brutally knocked back by OPEC in its attempt to maintain an exemption for its condensates production. OPEC are no longer prepared to exempt condensates counting toward its current quota. Specifically production from the Agbami field. The inescapable conclusion must be that it is now time for Nigeria to leave OPEC. The reality is t...

LIBYAN LIGHT SWEET CRUDE BAD NEWS FOR QUA IBOE AND BONNY LIGHT The return of Libyan crudes, notably EsSider and Saharan which will largely clear in the Mediterranean at prices that will be competitive against long-haul grades, will put Nigerian grades under severe pressure. The return of Libyan crude has come at the worse possible time as Nigeria s...

 When the Stakeholder Democracy Network (SDN) an international non-governmental organisation broke the news, it re-exposed a racket that has been going on for years. Nigeria has been for a while the choice destination for dumping the worst, most carcinogenic, toxic refined petroleum products on the planet. Indeed such is the preponderance of o...

Nigeria agree to compensate OPEC by further cutting production  Nigeria should not be in the nonsensical position that it has to compensate OPEC by making additional production cuts as other producers increase their output. At the 20th meeting of the OPEC, Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) which took place on Wednesday, 15 Jul...

SYLVA MAKES THE CASE FOR DEREGULATION   A virtue signalling Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Chief Timipre Sylva in a statement recently released in Abuja was at pains to point out the economic benefits of deregulation of the downstream oil sector . The main thrust of his statement re-iterates arguments some of us having been mak...

When it first emerged the only surprise was that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) had for the first time in its history published audited accounts. The fact that this is an historic event says it all. The financial statements provide in part a snapshot of a poorly run organisation with many of its subsidiaries insolvent which was ...

Deregulationit would appear is finally upon Nigeria, or probably not. An incoherent and ostensibly contradictory statement made by The Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Abdulkadir Saidu cast doubt on earlier proclamations as he seemed to suggest that the market would not set the price for gasoline and ...

Nigerians have been told they are resilient, as if they have a choice. A flattery conceived to beguile the masses   living in abject poverty. Often repeated  by a well fed political class that have garnered enough wealth to insulate themselves from the harsh vagaries of the Nigerian existence.