As part of efforts to boost economic activities in the state, especially in the rural areas, Edo State government says it has entered into partnership with Azura Power West African Limited for the establishment of a gas power plant in the state. Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, who gave the hint in Benin City during the presentation of 2014 budget estimate to the House of Assembly, said the power plant would be located at Ihovbor community, near Benin City.
Updated 7 Years ago

The new owners of the recently privatised power plants are still complaining. This time, the investors declared that the unresolved staffing issues in the industry remained a major challenge impeding their smooth operations. The power investors had in the past complained about a number of issues, ranging from poor public awareness of the payment of electricity tariff to inadequate power load allocation, gas constraint, poor communication between the Transmission Company of Nigeria and electricity distribution companies.
Updated 7 Years ago

The flood of North American crude oil is set to become a deluge as Mexicodismantles a 75-year-old barrier to foreign investment in its oil fields. Plagued by almost a decade of slumping output that has degraded Mexico’s take from a $100-a-barrel oil market, President Enrique Pena Nieto is seeking an end to the state monopoly over one of the biggest crude resources in the Western Hemisphere. The doubling in Mexican oil output that Citigroup Inc. said may result from inviting international explorers to drill would be equivalent to adding another Nigeria to world supply, or about 2.5 million barrels a day.
Updated 7 Years ago

Heirs Holdings Ltd., a Nigerian investment company with interests across Africa in banking, energy, real estate and agriculture, plans to set up a commodities exchange in the continent’s most populous nation. The Lagos-based investor wants to acquire the state-owned Abuja Commodities Exchange when it is sold, Heirs Chairman Tony Elumelu said in an interview with Bloomberg Africa TV to be broadcast Dec. 14. If it’s unable to buy the exchange, Heirs Holdings will apply to Nigeria’s Securities and Exchange Commission to set up one, he said.
Updated 7 Years ago

Dangote Sugar has said it will create 150,000 jobs at its new sugar plantations located in Sokoto, Kebbi, Jigawa, Taraba, Kogi and Kwara states. The newly appointed Group Managing Director, Dangote Sugar Group, Mr. Graham Clark, was on Sunday quoted as saying this, adding that the company would continue to strengthen output, sales and distribution through a large distribution network.
Updated 7 Years ago

Ma Huateng, chairman of Asia’s largest Internet company Tencent (700)Holdings Ltd., overtook property tycoon Wang Jianlin to become China’s second-richest man, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Ma has a net worth of $12.1 billion, surpassing Wang by $100 million, according to the daily index. Tencent shares have soared 90 percent this year in Hong Kong trading, compared with a 2.5 percent increase in the benchmarkHang Seng Index.
Updated 7 Years ago

Financial institutions other than the Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the country have weak financial reporting, and a significant number of them did not pass the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) readiness test conducted by the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) of Nigeria. Jim Osayande Obazee, executive secretary, Financial Reporting Council, who confirmed this in Lagos at a three-day retreat with journalists said “except for NAICOM’s effort, not more than 20 insurance companies would have been able to submit their 2012 financial statements (prepared using IFRS) to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).”
Updated 7 Years ago

The decision by Warren Buffett’s utility company to order about $1 billion of wind turbines for projects in Iowa shows how a drop in equipment costs is making renewable energy more competitive with power from fossil fuels. Turbine prices have fallen 26 percent worldwide since the first half of 2009, bringing wind power within 5.5 percent of the cost of electricity from coal, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., a unit of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., yesterday announced an order for 1,050 megawatts of Siemens AG wind turbines in the industry’s largest order to date for land-based gear.
Updated 7 Years ago

The National Bureau of Statistics on Sunday released the Consumer Price Index for the month of November. The report, signed by the Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale, said inflation rate in the country rose to 7.9 per cent year-on-year. This, it said, was a marginal increase of 0.1 percentage point from the 7.8 per cent recorded in October.
Updated 7 Years ago

European Union banks have shed more than $1.1 trillion of assets since the end of 2011 in a shift away from risky investments such as asset-backed debt as regulators push lenders to shore up their balance sheets. Lenders reduced assets weighted for risk by 817 billion euros ($1.1 trillion) between December 2011 and June 2013, the European Banking Authority, the bloc’s top banking regulator, said in a report yesterday. Banks’ core Tier 1 capital ratios, a measure of how well they can absorb losses, rose to 11.7 percent from 10 percent over the time period.
Updated 7 Years ago