Nigeria: Press spotlights signing of new deal by NNPCL, ExxonMobil

The report that Nigeria may add 480,000 barrels to its daily crude oil output as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and ExxonMobil took a step towards resolving the disagreement surrounding the sale of the latter’s asset to Seplat Energy is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Punch reports that Nigeria may add 480,000 barrels to its daily crude oil output as the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited and ExxonMobil took a step towards resolving the disagreement surrounding the sale of the latter’s asset to Seplat Energy.
On Thursday, the NNPCL confirmed it had signed a settlement agreement with ExxonMobil companies in Nigeria over the proposed divestment of a 100 per cent interest in Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited to Seplat Energy Offshore Limited.
This is coming barely 24 two days after President Bola Tinubu announced his intervention in the debacle between NNPCL and ExxonMobil hindering the sale of the assets to Seplat.
The Minister of States for Petroleum, Heineken Lokpobiri, said recently that Nigeria had lost about $30bn in the past two and a half years as a result of the unsuccessful divestment.
The minister expressed concerns that Nigeria was losing about 480,000 barrels of crude oil per day due to the Seplat/ExxonMobil crisis.
He said the asset was producing about 600,000bpd until the crisis began in 2022, saying the nation was losing millions of dollars daily.
The newspaper says that as the Federal Government steps its Compressed Natural Gas adoption in the country, the Presidential CNG Initiative says plans have been concluded to roll out 5,000 CNG-powered tricycles over the next three months.
The Programme Director and Chief Executive, P-CNGi, Michael Oluwagbemi, said this on Thursday at the inauguration of the Luojia Tricycle Assembly plant in Ogun State.
The government has continued to galvanise resources towards a mass adoption of CNG in the country.
Oluwagbemi said government had introduced several incentives, including Value Added Tax exemptions and Custom duty waivers for CNG-powered tricycles and other vehicles entering the country.
The government, he said, had also mandated all Ministries, Departments, and Agencies to purchase only CNG-powered vehicles moving forward.
The, move, according to programme director, will drive the adoption of cleaner energy solutions across the country.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority is providing CNG at a concessionary price, offering more than a 40 per cent discount on the current price.
“The 5,000 tricycles form part of the initial units acquired by the government under the Presidential CNG Initiative, which aims to enhance affordable and eco-friendly transportation across Nigeria and to mitigate the impact of fuel subsidy removal,” Oluwagbemi said.
According to the P-CNGi chief executive, the new Luojia assembly plant will help create jobs and boost economic growth.
“It will generate at least 60 direct jobs and over 6,000 indirect jobs. This collaboration with the private sector in implementing this initiative would boost economic growth and increase tax revenue for the government,” he said.
The Vanguard newspaper reports that the federal government has secured a $500 million loan from the World Bank to fund electricity Distribution Companies (DisCos).
According to the Bureau of Public Enterprises, in a statement in Abuja, yesterday, the loan would fill financing gaps in the distribution segment, considered as the most problematic in the industry.
“This funding supports the Nigerian Distribution Sector Recovery Program (DISREP) aimed at improving the financial and technical performance of the DisCos.
“The DISREP is designed to enhance the financial and technical operations of the DisCos through capital investment and the financing of key components of their Performance Improvement Plans (PIPs), which have been approved by the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC),” the Bureau said in the statement signed by Amina Othman, Head, Public Communications.
It added that the $500 million DISREP loan offered concessional financing with more favorable terms than commercial bank loans.
It is expected that DisCos would invest the funds “in critical distribution infrastructure; Improve ATC&C losses; increase power supply reliability; achieve financial sustainability in the power sector; and enhance transparency and accountability. Significant progress has been made in the preparation of the DISREP Programme,” BPE explained.
According to the privatisation agency, key areas of improvement include: bulk procurement of customer/retail meters and meter data management systems; implementation of a Data Aggregation Platform (DAP); strengthening governance and transparency within the DisCos; and programme components.
The newspaper says that the Presidential Initiative on Compressed Natural Gas, PCNGi, yesterday commissioned a CNG Tricycle assembled plant.
The assembly plant built by TGIS Luojia Corporation, and located in Sagamu, Ogun State, has capacity to produce minimum of 30,000 CNG based tricycles per year.
Speaking at the commissioning, Chief Executive Officer, P-CNGi, Mr. Michael Oluwagbemi, said that the event signals the commencement of distribution 5,000 CNG based tricycles across the country as promised by President under the CNG initiative.
He said: “At these particular events here we are celebrating the flagging off, of the assembly of the tricycles that were acquired under the Presidential CNG initiative, P-CNGi with respect to rolling out these tricycles nationwide, in the next few months.
“This is the plant where it is going to be assembled, working with a consortium of Nigerian assemblers and their international counterparts Luojia Corporation of China.
“We expect at least 5000 tricycle to roll off these brands, under the first phase of our program. But in the next few weeks, we already expected the first batch of 2,500 as we promised.
“They are already on ground, as you can see a bunch of them are piled up inside the factory and they will be assembled in next few weeks and you will start seeing them around somewhere in your neighborhood across Nigeria, at least within the immediate range states. “We expect that these that these tricycles will deliver cheaper transportation for Nigerians especially at the bottom of the pyramid.
Speaking on the capacity of the plant, CEO, TGIS Luojia Corporation, Mr. Damilola Agboola, said: “This factory has the ability to assemble 120 tricycle per day that are CNG based, with a capacity to assemble 30,000 tricycles in a year. “And that is not operating at maximum capacity yet.
“With maximum capacity the number of tricycles that can be rolled out from this facility will ultimately go up. This facility is also opportunity for job creation. This place will have at least 60 direct jobs and you can expect a factor of 10 for indirect jobs.”
GIK/APA