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Nigeria cautioned Exxon Mobil on Tuesday about oil spills off the Niger Delta, saying while the output lost was minor it was worried by their frequency and the damage they could do to fragile coastal communities.

Africa’s biggest energy producer has had just over 2,400 oil spills involving its foreign oil partners since 2006, according to the National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency (NOSDRA), most of them onshore in the Niger Delta’s creeks.

Many are caused by militant attacks or saboteurs seeking to tap into pipelines and siphon off oil.

But Environment Minister John Odey summoned Exxon Mobil (XOM.N) to a meeting with NOSDRA officials to discuss what the government said were a series of spills far offshore, where militant attacks and sabotage are infrequent.

“We are concerned about the operations of Exxon Mobil because once it is offshore, any spillage could of course affect the shoreline and it could go far beyond their areas of operation,” Odey told reporters after the meeting.

“Exxon Mobil needs to show more caution in terms of the management of oil spills,” he said.

The disaster seen in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, where millions of gallons of oil have spilled after an offshore rig blast blew out a BP Plc (BP.L) well, have heightened concerns about the environmental safety of offshore drilling around the world.

Nigeria’s NOSDRA said the last spill, on May 1, had occurred at an Exxon platform some 20-25 miles (32-40 km) offshore which feeds the Qua Iboe oil export terminal. Previous spills had occurred last December and in February, according to the agency.

Exxon Mobil declared force majeure last month on Qua Iboe oil shipments due to what it said was damage to a pipeline.

The U.S. energy firm acknowledged there had been a spill on May 1 but disputed some of the claims made against it in a presentation during the Abuja meeting.

“Yes we had a spill … but some of the things said and shown are not correct. Perhaps there is a communication gap and we will work towards bridging this gap,” Aniefiok Etuk, Exxon Mobil’s general manager for safety, health and environment in Nigeria, told reporters.

Nigeria has struggled to produce much above two thirds of its installed production capacity of 3 million barrels per day (bpd), most of it onshore, because of unrest in the Niger Delta.

Oil spills in the delta’s creeks have been left to fester for decades, polluting the air, soil, and water of impoverished communities.

Nigeria sees its future output growth largely in offshore fields and does not want spills there to compound its environmental woes.

NOSDRA’s director of oil spill detection, Idris Musa, said the offshore spills so far had involved relatively small amounts of production but that it was starting to become a concern.

“Some of the spills are not large but the frequency is becoming a source of concern and worry to the agency,” he said.

REUTERS

Some finance
institutions have raised about 16 million Euros to invest in
high-potential emerging and early-stage microfinance institutions that
need financial and professional support to grow in Nigeria and Ghana.

The firms, Goodwell
West Africa, managed by Alitheia Capital (Nigeria), Goodwell
Investments (Netherlands), and JCS Investments (Ghana), announced on
Friday that it has received commitments from the German Bank for
Reconstruction and the Norwegian Microfinance Initiative Frontier Fund.

This brings the
total commitments so far to Euro 16 million, which the private equity
company will invest in high-potential microfinance institutions in
Ghana and Nigeria.

In December 2009,
the firms announced the first close of a $60 million equity fund,
focused on microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Nigeria and Ghana.

Investment in a variety of institutions

Goodwell
Investments provides investment advisory services towards the
development and management of investment vehicles and products that
generate both social and financial returns. Alitheia Capital (Nigeria)
and JCS Investments, investment advisors specialising in venture
capital management and advisory services for Foreign Direct
Investments, say the investment is for emerging and early stage
microfinance institutions.

A large share of
the population in the region is financially excluded or not served by
formal or high-quality financial service providers. The financial
infrastructure to reach these groups is lacking or inadequate in both
countries. The objective of Alitheia Goodwell is to build this
financial infrastructure by investing in a variety of microfinance
institutions (MFIs).

Through its local
manager, Alitheia Capital, the company will invest primarily in
established microfinance institutions with potential for high growth
and transformation. In later stages, it will also identify and invest
in high-potential emerging and early-stage institutions that need
financial and professional support to develop and grow rapidly.

Alitheia Goodwell’s
strategy is to provide a combination of growth capital, on the ground
support to local microfinance institutions management teams, and access
to the expertise and a global network of experienced microfinance
practitioners.

Karl-Heinz
Fleishhacker, head, Financial and Private Sector Sub-Saharan Africa of
KfW Development Bank, in a statement said the firm(Goodwell West
Africa) is “happy to conclude our first investment under the
Microfinance Initiative for Sub-Saharan Africa II, an initiative which
aims at strengthening Sub-Saharan microfinance networks.”

Richard Weingarten, managing director of NMI, also said he believes
both markets have significant potential. “We are also particularly
pleased to be able to support the local management teams in Ghana and
Nigeria and to thus help build local capacity for making microfinance
investments.”

Nigeria’s foreign
reserves have been fluctuating in the last one week, as the Central
Bank of Nigeria (CBN) battles to sustain the value of the naira.

The reserves peaked
at $40.887 billion on 12 May, its highest level in the last one month.
Since then, the figure has recorded a steady decline, dropping to
$37.540 billion on 8 June, about a month later. The figure rose by 2.21
percent the following day, to close last week at $38.373 billion.

The marginal rise
in the reserves is attributable to the improvement in Nigeria’s crude
oil output, which also took a dip in June. According to data released
by Reuters, preliminary loading programmes showed Nigerian crude oil
exports would average 2.18 million bpd in July, rising from 1.95
million bpd in June and 2.13 million bpd in May.

Forex demand

The Nigerian
currency, which sold at N148.88 at the end of the Wholesale Dutch
Auction System (WDAS) bidding session yesterday, has been under a lot
of pressure lately following increased foreign exchange demand, which
has left the CBN at a dilemma over whether to devalue the currency or
dip into the foreign reserves to meet demand.

The naira has been
relatively stable in the last few months, fluctuating between N148.35
and N148.93, a marginal band of 0.39 percent, while the foreign
reserves have caved in to high foreign exchange demands. For instance,
a total of $1.71 billion was sold by the CBN at the last five auctions
of the WDAS, with $350 million sold in the final auction last week. The
CBN has always maintained that it will meet legitimate demands for
foreign exchange, warning speculators to desist from unnecessary demand
for foreign exchange.

The CBN has thus
stepped up effort to ensure genuine foreign exchange demand in order to
check speculation and capital flight. It last week informed all
authorised dealer banks and other reporting institutions about a review
of the deadline for the submission of monthly returns on foreign
exchange transactions to its Trade and Exchange Department.

A circular signed
by Batari Musa, director, stated that all monthly returns via the
electronic Financial Analysis and Surveillance System (eFASS), shall be
submitted not later than the fifth day of the following month.

“However, where the
fifth day falls on a weekend or public holiday, the returns shall be
forwarded the next working day.” According to the circular, this is in
a bid to ensure timely collation and analysis of returns for policy
initiation and /or review.

The CBN is under obligation to sustain the naira at a maximum N150
to the dollar, which is the benchmark value captured in the 2010 budget.

The
price movement at the international crude oil market in recent times
appears to have given the federal government some respite on its
proposal to re-jig the fundamentals of the 2010 budget appropriation.

A
few weeks ago, the performance of the commodity triggered anxious
moments in government circles, as the scale went below the $67 per
barrel benchmark contained in the budget by about $0.16. The
Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) basket of 12
crudes price for the week ended 25 May was as low as $66.84 per barrel,
sending jitters down the spines of government officials, most of who
fretted on how the three tiers of government would fund their
allocations from the Federation Account, which is dependent almost
entirely on revenue earnings from oil exports.

Remi
Babalola, the minister of state for finance, told journalists at the
end of the last the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC)
that it resorted to the ‘Doctrine of Economic Pragmatism’ to handle the
stalemate that resulted in last month’s revenue allocation meeting by
proposing a re-jig of the budget fundamentals.

Scaling down benchmark

The
proposal to the National Assembly is for the crude oil benchmark to be
scaled down to an average of $59 and $55 barrels per barrel, while the
country’s daily oil production capacity would be lowered to an average
of two million barrels. The re-jig process would, however, have to wait
for members of the National Assembly to return from their recess next
week to deliberate on the proposal.

Crude
oil market fundamentals as at yesterday showed the price of OPEC basket
of 12 crudes for the week ended 11 June registering a marginal climb to
$72.29 per barrel, from $72.21 the previous day.

Brent
crude price recorded a $1.71, or 2.32 percent climb from $73.78 at the
weekend to $75.49 per barrel, to give government some breathing space
to await the intervention of the National Assembly in the budget
provision from next week. Mr. Babalola also noted that the federal
government was commitment to the improvement of available data on
Federation Account allocation to all tiers of government in the country
to inspire confidence of all.

Declining earnings

The
declining earnings from oil exports in recent times as a result of
sliding prices at the international market had heightened the call for
all tiers of government to step up efforts to explore alternative
sources of revenue, particularly their internally generated revenue
(IGR) sources, rather than wait for allocations from the Federation
Account every month. Reliance on Federation Account allocation by the
three tiers of government has exerted enormous pressure on the saving
in the Excess Crude Account (ECA), resulting in the depletion of their
balances.

Ibrahim Dankwambo, the accountant general of the federation, said
recently that about $4.6billion is left as balance in the foreign
excess crude account, prior to the disbursement of about N339.627
billion to augment the arrears of allocation to the three tiers of
government for January to April stood at about $5.193billion, while
only N89billion is in the domestic excess crude account.

The Nigeria Labour
Congress, on Monday, urged the federal government to disregard any
advice seeking the withdrawal of fuel subsidy and deregulation of the
downstream sector of the petroleum industry.

In a statement,
signed by its acting head of information, Onah Iduh, the congress said
that the introduction of any anti-people policy would increase the
masses’ burden. The congress reiterated its stand that the government
should not increase the prices of petroleum products.

“There is no doubt
that a reform is pertinent in the oil and gas sector but the government
must ensure that the socioeconomic problems of the people are solved,”
it said.

The World Bank on Monday in Lagos commended Nigeria for measures taken to improve safety and security at its airports.

Noro Rabefaniraka,
leader of the bank’s monitoring team to Nigeria, said that the
commitment showed the readiness of the nation’s aviation industry to
develop in line with current global best practices.

At a meeting with
the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), Mrs Rabefaniraka said that
Nigeria was given 50 million dollars under the World Bank Assisted
Project.

The fund, according to her, is for the procurement of equipment and upgrading of infrastructure in the nation’s aviation sector.

The Fadama III
Project in Plateau has disbursed more than N81 million to 319 Fadama
user groups, the coordinator of the project, Gideon Dandam, has said.

Mr. Dandam told the
News Agency of Nigeria in Jos on Monday that the project was a “huge
success” given the involvement of genuine farmers in the scheme. He
said that the World Bank-assisted scheme had recorded “some large
patronage” as it was demand-driven, intervening in input support and
assets acquisition. The coordinator said that the state project office
also delivered 4,800 bags of NPK and Urea variants of fertilisers to
the farmers, adding that herbicides were also given to them.