Africa > Central Africa > Petroleum / Mining

Petroleum / Mining in Central Africa

  • W. Africa Crude-Angolan programme emerges

    ANGOLA, 2017/07/18 National firm Sonangol issued its September loading programme on Monday with traders instantly offering cargoes as August cargoes are sold out. * Nigerian September loading programmes are as well expected to emerge this week. * Exports of Angolan crude oil are expected to fall to 50 cargoes in September, down from 54 cargoes in August, a loading plan showed on Monday. * With the emergence of the programme, ExxonMobil instantly offered five cargoes.
  • Geopolitics To Drive Oil Prices Once Again

    WORLD, 2017/07/09 I have picked up three news items from Oil & Energy Insider that supports my hypothesis that US Shale output will continue to rise. However, some of the oil producing nations may become victim of commotion, anarchy and proxy wars. This will automatically reduce the supplies from these nations. OPEC may as well opt not to extend cut anymore. Energy sector analysts are desperately awaits the outcome of OPEC’ conference in Vienna scheduled for 25th May. While the overwhelming expectation is that the cartel will acknowledge on a six-month extension of the production cuts. However, presently top OPEC officials are wondering if it will be enough. OPEC’s monthly statement revised expected US shale increase sharply upwards, predicting output to increase 64 % additional than originally expected. That equates to projected increase from US shale of 950,000 bpd this year. OPEC fears that an extension will boost prices just enough to allow shale companies to lock in hedges once again, ensuring an extra wave of supply.
  • Africa rejects Europe's 'dirty diesel'

    BOTSWANA, 2017/05/04 Ghana and Nigeria are the first countries to respond to reports of European companies exploiting weak fuel standards in Africa. Stricter limits on the sulfur content of diesel will come into force on July 1. Governments in West Africa are taking action to stop the import of fuel with dangerously high levels of sulfur and other toxins. Much of the so-called "dirty diesel" originates in Europe, according to a report published by Public Eye, a Swiss NGO, last year. The report exposed what Public Eye calls the "illegitimate business" of European oil companies and commodities traders selling low quality fuel to Africa. While European standards prohibit the use of diesel with a sulfur content higher than 10 parts per million (ppm), diesel with as much as 3,000 ppm is regularly exported to Africa.
  • DR Congo lowers economic growth forecast for the third time this year

    CONGO BRAZZAVILLE, 2016/08/27 The Democratic Republic of Congo has slashed its economic increase estimate for 2016 to 4.3 %, compared with 6.9 % in 2015. According to a statement released the prime ministers office, the lower estimate is due to the impact of low commodity prices. The new downgrade is the third this year next the government in June lowered the increase estimate to 5.3 % from an before prediction of 9 %.
  • How revenues from oil and gas in Africa can be made to work for ordinary people

    AFRICA, 2016/07/27 Critics point out that ordinary people have not benefited from oil and gas exploitation in a lot of African states. Billions of dollars in revenue have had little positive impact on the lives of most people in nations like Angola and Nigeria. Local content policies have been expanding across Africa and are currently being drafted in Uganda, Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique. In a new book, The Petro-Developmental National in Africa, Jesse Salah Ovadia argues that this needn’t be the case and that a different approach focused on local content is possible. This involves regulations that encourage employment and nurture local companies to increase domestic participation in the industry. I asked him whether his proposed approach could be a game changer for economic development in Africa’s oil producing states.
  • Angola diamond production volume increase slightly in June

    ANGOLA, 2016/07/26 Angola’s Ministry of Geology and Mines has released the diamond production statistics for June which show production reached 760,393 carats, with a price of around US$80.5 million, according to a statement by Angola Press. This represents a 2.28 % increase in production and 5.35 % increase by price compared with the previous month (May 2016), but only a 1.7 % rise in production year-over-year, and a 13.36 % drop in price compared with June 2015.
  • Beyond Commodities: How African Multinationals Are Transforming

    BOTSWANA, 2016/05/11 Oil, gold, diamonds, palm oil, cocoa, timber: raw materials have long been linked to Africa in a lot of businesspeople’s minds. And in fact the continent is highly dependent on commodities: they constitute as much as 95% of some nations’ export revenues, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. But propping a country’s entire economy on commodities is risky business, like building a mountainside home on stilts. You can’t be sure about the weather, or in this case the commodities market. The current free-fall of oil prices to less than $40 a barrel is a glaring example. “The commodities cycle has tanked out,” says Austin Okere, founder of Computer Warehouse Group (CWG), a Nigerian emerging multinational financial services company. “And this time it looks additional structural than cyclical, so it’s not a matter of waiting it out. Something has to give.”
  • Norway’s Statoil sells stake in oil block in Angola

    ANGOLA, 2016/03/26 Norwegian oil company Statoil has sold the 20 % share it held in the company responsible for oil production in block 4/05 of the Angolan sea, according to an executive order signed by the Angolan Oil Minister. The document signed by Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos authorises the transfer of Satoil’s interest in the production sharing arrangement on that block, north of Luanda, but does not explain reasons or funds involved in the transaction.
  • Africa’s Resource Economy: Same Old Boom and Bust

    AFRICA, 2016/03/14 There are winners and losers whenever markets move significantly, whether they are currency markets, metal markets or other commodities such as oil or agriculture. The last two years have seen a massive shift between winners and losers across the globe depending on whether nations are net importers or exporters of a range of commodities, most of which have plunged in price.Some regions, though, have suffered additional than others and while one can say the OPEC leaders — such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and other Persian Gulf states — are feeling self-inflicted wounds, other producer-states at no time supported the idea of taking on US shale drillers in the initial place, from presently on they have been hit harder than the Gulf states by the plunging oil price.
  • Angola joins Nigeria to increase price of oil

    ANGOLA, 2015/12/09 The presidents of Angola and Nigeria have agreed on joint cooperation in seeking to reverse the trend in the price of oil per barrel on world markets, the international press reported. The heads of national of the two major sub-Saharan oil producing nations, José Eduardo dos Santos of Angola and Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, held a conference on the sidelines of the 6th edition of the China/Africa Forum. Both presidents said it did not make sense to sell additional oil for less money and called for a new consensus part oil producing nations to increase the price per barrel.