The federal government yesterday announced its commitment to an initial N33 billion soft term credit line to support the metering plans of the distribution companies in Nigeria’s electricity supply industry. The government stated that its decision was informed by the huge gap in metering facilities available to consumers in the country’s electricity sector.
Updated 6 Years ago

Nigeria’s power sector has received a boost as President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday inaugurated a 200 million standard cubic feet of gas per day, Uquo Gas Processing Facility, which has a capacity to power 1,000 megawatts (MW) of gas-fired power plants. The N90 billion facility, which is located in Esiet-Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State, and funded by Seven Energy, is the first of its kind to be built by Nigerian independents.
Updated 6 Years ago

The Debt Management Office (DMO) has sold N100 billion worth of bonds with maturities ranging between three and 20 years at an auction that fetched higher yields than previously. The DMO said yesterday that N15 billion of 3-year debt notes were sold, fetching 11.12 per cent, higher than the 11 per cent they got at the July auction, while N50 billion of 10-year debt was sold at 12.22 per cent against 12.19 percent previously.
Updated 6 Years ago

It’s official. South African’s smartphone of choice is now Samsung. This is according to Effective Measure’s (EM) latest survey of desktop internet users during May-June this year. EM is a provider of media planning and audience profiling solutions. With a 39.4 percent market share of those surveyed, Sumsung has outdone Blackberry with 31.6 percent of the market share in Africa’s most advanced economy.
Updated 6 Years ago

Italian multinational dairy and food corporation, Parmalat says it plans to invest over $4 million in milk production plants in Zambia this year. This week, Parmalat unveiled a $800,000 powdered milk plant in Zambian capital Lusaka. “This year Parmalat is investing K30 million ($4.9 million) in capital projects. This would be followed by an ultra-high temperature processing (UTH) steriliser and homogeniser at a cost of K11 million ($1 78,5047),” Parmalat Zambia Limited managing director Mike Mallet said.
Updated 6 Years ago

Standard Bank, Africa’s biggest bank by assets, on Thursday said it had to writedown R854 million ($80 million) because of its closeness to an alleged metal bankrolling scam in China, the world’s second biggest economy. In May this year, Chinese authorities started a probe into whether metals trading company, Decheng Mining and others had used bogus stockroom receipts at Qingdao port to take numerous financial advances obtained against a “single cargo of metal.”
Updated 6 Years ago

Africa’s leading manufacturing company, Dangote Group is investing $250 million to build coal plants that will help address the low supply of gas and LPFO (black oil) which it said is affecting its business operations in Nigeria. Group Managing Director (GMD) of Dangote Group, Devacumar Edwin said the company is taking this alternative route because empirical evidence shows that “there is really not going to be major improvement” in the country’s gas and LPFO supply situation in years to come.
Updated 6 Years ago

Bahrain’s Arab Banking Corp (ABC) on Thursday signed to obtain a $750 million, three-year loan facility from a group of banks, expanding the facility from an originally planned $500 million. The facility, to be arranged by HSBC, National Bank of Abu Dhabi, Natixis and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, will pay an interest rate of 120 basis points above the London interbank offered rate (Libor), the lender said at a signing ceremony in Dubai.
Updated 6 Years ago

The Oman Railway Company (ORC) unveiled a list of pre-qualified consortiums to undertake its national railway project on Wednesday, according to a report by theTimes of Oman. The company said it plans to float a tender, inviting bids from pre-qualified companies for constructing the first package of the 170-km Sohar-Buraimi route this month.
Updated 6 Years ago

It took three years for 32-year-old Chu Jia to make the change from being an anxiety-ridden full-time housewife to a confident working mother after her marriage failed. After obtaining a master’s degree in media communications in 2008, Chu worked at a public relations company until she quit when she was six months pregnant. She became a full-time housewife and mother.
Updated 6 Years ago