Daily Watch – Petrobras to fling Nigerian unit, Lagos-Abidjan road gets financial agreement
10th November 2017
- Nigeria plans to raise ₦710 billion ($2.26 billion) via restructuring its equity in joint venture oil assets and increasing private sector participation, the Debt Management Office said on Thursday. Oil companies including Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and ExxonMobil, operate in Nigeria through joint ventures with the NNPC. The government has considered selling stakes in these joint ventures for more than a decade. Responding to Moody’s downgrade of Nigeria’s bonds, the DMO said that the current plan was captured in the 2018 budget proposals and is aimed at providing revenue to the government to be used to create new assets. The FG has been holding talks with oil companies regarding new financing agreements for joint ventures since last year as it struggled to fund its portion of such partnerships through cash calls which have often been delayed in parliament.
- Brazil’s state-controlled oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA is leading an effort to sell Petrobras Oil and Gas BV (Petrobras Africa), after being joined in the sale by shareholders Grupo BTG Pactual SA and Helios Investments, it said on Thursday. Heavily indebted Petrobras announced plans this week to sell its 50 percent stake and began sending information on the company to potential investors. It has been joined in the sale by BTG Pactual E&P BV, a subsidiary of investment bank Grupo BTG Pactual SA, and Helios Investments, who will offer their respective 40 percent and 10 percent stakes. Petrobras Africa participates in two deep-water oil exploration blocks off the coast of Nigeria that contain the Akpo and Agbami producing fields and are operated by Total SA and Chevron Corp respectively.
- Babatunde Fashola, power, works and housing minister says the FG has signed a financial agreement for the execution of Lagos-Abidjan highway. Fashola made this known at the ninth steering committee and experts meeting of the Lagos-Abidjan Corridor Highway Development Programme. At the annual meeting of the World Bank and the IMF in Washington, finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, appealed to both institutions to finance a highway from Nigeria to Senegal, saying it would boost the regional economy.
- The NSE confirmed Thursday that Ade Bajomo, Executive Director, Market Operations and Technology has resigned his appointment effective December 31 to pursue other challenges, along with Executive Director, Capital Markets, Haruna Jalo-Waziri who has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer of the CSCS, who left effective October 31. Commenting on the development, NSE CEO Oscar Onyema thanked Bajomo and Jalo-Waziri “for their immense contributions to the transformation of The Exchange and the Nigerian capital markets over the past few years. They led various significant projects and initiatives to improve efficiency and drive sustainable growth of the market.”