Saturday, April 2, 2011
Libyan Rebels Claim to Retake Key Oil Port Town
Libyan rebels are claiming to have captured the strategic oil port town of Brega Saturday as fighting continues against forces loyal to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. Popular protests are also continuing across the region, especially in Yemen and Syria.
News that the key oil port town of Brega had fallen to rebel fighters Saturday appeared to reverse the recent trend by pro-Gadhafi forces, which had pushed slowly eastward toward the rebel-held town of Ajdabiya.
NATO warplanes bombed targets in and around Brega overnight, accidentally striking a pickup truck manned by rebel fighters. A Libyan doctor told al Jazeera TV that NATO planes also blew up a Gadhafi arms cache hidden among houses, causing civilian casualties.
A rebel spokesman Mustafa Ghariani indicated that the rebels considered the strikes accidental, and considered that the air campaign would ultimately shorten the war on the ground.
Libyan state TV claimed that civilians were hit by another NATO airstrike over the Gadhafi stronghold of Sabha, which houses an important government airbase. The TV showed doctors treating civilians it says were wounded in the airstrike. The claims were impossible to verify.
Pro-Gadhafi supporters also chanted slogans in favor of their embattled leader, denouncing NATO intervention. A pro-Gadhafi announcer on government TV insisted that Libyan media was "one million percent objective." while complaining that outside channels were "biased."
Eyewitnesses in the besieged western Libyan city of Misrata told Arab satellite channels that pro-Gadhafi forces continued to fire tank shells, mortar rounds and field artillery into the city. On Friday, an opposition leader in Benghazi, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, demanded that Gadhafi withdraw his forces from Misrata and other government-controlled cities before the opposition would accept a ceasefire.
Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim, however, denied that the rebels had agreed to a ceasefire, insisting that it was a ploy. "You are not offering peace if you are making impossible demands. It's a trick. We are the ones who offered peace, weeks ago, when we said we're going to talk and let's sit down and everything," he said.
Yemen
Anti-government protesters react during a demonstration demanding the resignation of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, in Sanaa, April 2, 2011
Elsewhere, ongoing protests continued in the Yemeni capital Sana'a and other cities across the country Saturday. In the southern port city of Aden, army forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh fired into the air as thousands of protesters hurled stones at them and blocked a key roadway by setting tires on fire.
Syria
In Syria, where unrest shook at least five cities Friday, human rights activists warned that dozens of protesters had been arrested by state security forces. Syrian government TV denounced Friday’s violence, complaining it was the work of "armed gangs."
Nigerian Legislative Elections Delayed Two Days After Ballots Arrive Late
By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo and Dulue Mbachu - Apr 2, 2011 9:27 AM ET
Nigeria, Africa’s top oil producer, delayed legislative elections scheduled to start today until April 4 due to the late arrival of voting materials, the head of the electoral commission said.
“There’s insufficient time for voting materials to reach all the polling centers,” Attahiru Jega, head of the Independent National Electoral Commission, told reporters today in Abuja, the capital. Because the ballot stations that had opened were still accrediting voters, “the stoppage hasn’t affected voting.”
At stake in the national legislative vote in Africa’s top oil producer are 109 senate seats and 360 seats in the House of Representatives. The main opposition parties, Action Congress of Nigeria and the Congress for Progressive Change, aim to cut the majority the People’s Democratic Party won in both houses four years ago by saying it failed to reduce poverty, corruption and violence.
“In the circumstances it was best to postpone,” Clement Nwankwo, executive director of the Abuja-based Policy and Legal Advocacy Centre, which is monitoring the electoral process, said in a phone interview today from Abuja. “It would’ve been more grievous if the elections had gone on because it would’ve been inconclusive.”
More than 50 people have died in election-related violence since July, according to Amnesty International, while sectarian clashes in the north have claimed the lives of at least 200 since Dec. 24. In a March 3 attack, at least 10 people died when explosives were hurled at a rally of President Goodluck Jonathan’s PDP in the town of Suleja.
Oil Exporter
Nigeria is the fifth-largest source of U.S. oil imports. Hague-based Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA), Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), Chevron Corp. (CVX) of San Ramon, California, Total SA (FP) of France and Italy’s Eni SpA (ENI) run joint ventures with the state- owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. that pump more than 90 percent of the West African nation’s oil.
Since Nigeria’s return to civilian government in 1999 after 15 years of military rule, the PDP has presided over the spending of more than $300 billion in oil export revenue. During that time income disparities have widened, with 54 percent of the population living on less than a dollar a day, about 22 million citizens, illiterate, and maternal mortality of 800 per 100,000 live births, a rate among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations Development Programme.
The vote is a prelude to the presidential contest next weekthat pits Jonathan against 18 rivals, including former military ruler Muhammadu Buhari and the ex-head of the anti- graft agency, Nuhu Ribadu, who is the candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria. A week after that, voters choose the governors and legislatures of Nigeria’s 36 states.
Violence
The concern about sectarian and election-related violence has sparked domestic demand for foreign currency, central bank Governor Lamido Sanusi said in a March 15 interview in Abuja. That has weakened the naira, which reached an 18-month low against the dollar on March 17.
“People want to see a smooth transition, a free and fair election before they bring back the money,” he said.
While an armed insurgency in the Niger River delta that cut more than 28 percent of the nation’s oil output from 2006 to 2009 remains relatively quiet, parts of the north have been hit by a mounting campaign of violence by Islamic militants inspired by Afghanistan’s Taliban movement.
Elections in 2003 and 2007 were marred by violence, voter intimidation and the stuffing of ballot boxes.
Jonathan pledged a more transparent vote this year and won plaudits by appointing Jega, a respected academic, to head the electoral commission.
To contact the reporters on this story: Dulue Mbachu in Abuja at dmbachu@bloomberg.net; Elisha Bala-Gbogbo in Abuja at ebalagbogbo@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Antony Sguazzin at asguazzin@bloomberg.net; Andrew J. Barden at barden@bloomberg.net.
Fighting rages in Ivory Coast with 800 dead in West Africa.
By Ange Aboa and Loucoumane Coulibaly Ange Aboa And Loucoumane Coulibaly
ABIDJAN (Reuters)
Soldiers backing Alassane Ouattara met stiff resistance from incumbent Laurent Gbagbo's fighters in Ivory Coast's main city of Abidjan on Saturday as the two sides fought for control of the West African country.
There was fighting around the Presidential Palace, state broadcaster RTI and military bases between forces loyal to the two presidential rivals, and a Reuters reporter heard gunfire and explosions from heavy shelling near the palace throughout the morning.
In a sign of how bloody the conflict has become, the International Committee of the Red Cross said at least 800 people were killed in intercommunal violence in the western Ivorian town of Duekoue this week.
That would bring the confirmed death toll from violence since the presidential election, in which Ouattara was the internationally recognized winner, to 1,300 people.
The actual toll is likely to be much higher because the fighting has been so heavy and because Gbagbo's forces rarely disclose their own losses or civilians they kill.
Gunbattles and the sounds of heavy weapons fire rang out across Abidjan as the country's former rebels pressed an offensive to oust Gbagbo, who has refused to concede power.
Residents said they heard loud explosions near Agban base, the city's largest, in the Adjame neighborhood near Cocody where Gbagbo has his official residence.
"Mortar fire has been heard since late last night around the gendarmerie. It is very loud and we're taking shelter in our homes," said Jules Konin, who lives nearby.
"The gendarmes from the camp are fighting the insurgents," said another resident, Adi Saba.
BROADCAST BUILDING
Pro-Gbagbo forces retained control of state broadcaster RTI, which came back on air late on Friday after heavy fighting took it down, showing pro-Gbagbo rallies and file footage of his swearing in ceremony after the contested November election.
An army officer shown surrounded by his troops announced over RTI on Saturday morning that all members of Gbagbo's security forces should mobilize to counter the offensive by Ouattara's soldiers.
The military "calls on all members of the national army, the gendarmerie, the national police, border patrol, and navy to join up with the following units," he said before listing bases around Abidjan.
A flashing scroll said Gbagbo's youth leader Charles Ble Goude would give an order soon.
The army handed out weapons to hundreds in the group this week and they have killed a number of civilians, particularly West African immigrants whom state TV blames for the rebellion.
Gbagbo, who has refused to quit after a November 28 election that U.N.-certified results showed he lost, has been hit by a number of high-level defections in the military since pro-Ouattara forces marched on Abidjan, but his camp says he remains in Ivory Coast and will not surrender.
Ouattara's government spokesman Patrick Achi told Reuters by phone that Gbagbo's fall nonetheless was imminent.
"I'm not worried at all. Where is he going to go? He doesn't control the army or the gendarmerie. They will be exhausted. They are running out of ammunition," Achi said.
"Where can they go from here? All their generals have surrendered. They aren't much of a force."
The African Union, former colonial ruler France, the United States, and U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon all have called on Gbagbo to step down immediately.
Forces supporting Ouattara, recognized as winner of the November election by African nations and Western powers, marched into Abidjan on Thursday after a swift push south that initially met with little formal resistance.
But they now face Gbagbo's most reliable fighters, the roughly 2,500-strong elite Republican Guard, clustered in Abidjan along with remaining regular army troops.
The power struggle in the world's top cocoa grower pushed cocoa prices higher in recent weeks, but they have tumbled since on expectations exports will soon be freed up.
Ivory Coast's $2.3 billion 2032 bond, on which it defaulted in January, extended gains on Friday, rising more than 3 points to a 3-1/2-month high.
(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks and Abidjan and Emma Thomasson in Geneva; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by Michael Roddy)
Friday, April 1, 2011
Emeka Offor’s Starcrest clinches Shell’s oil block
After a keen bidding, Elcrest Exploration and Production, a consortium comprising of UK-based Eland Oil and Gas and Starcrest Nigeria Energy, a subsidiary of Chrome Group, an indigenous oil firm, has been chosen as the preferred bidder for Shell’s oil block in oil mining lease (OML) 40 located in the Northwest of Niger Delta.
Although the cost of the transaction was not revealed by Shell and the consortium, it was gathered that the latter upped its bid from the initial $147 million to $154 million.
The deal, which was sealed last Thursday, has ceded 45 percent equity in the oil licence in which Shell holds 30 per cent, Total 10 per cent and Agip (Eni) five percent, to the consortium. The remaining 55 per cent equity is held by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
$48 million Dollar Oil Fraud Saga: TOR MD Threatens Legal Suit
http://business.peacefmonline.com/industry/201103/148885.php
The Coalition of Democratic Forces (CDF), a pressure group in the country, has called on the Atta Mills led National Democratic Congress government as a matter of urgency to sack, arrest and prosecute all Board Members of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) including its Managing Director, Ato Ampiah for being the brains behind a $48 million dollar oil fraud.
In an interview with Mr. Omari Wadie, leader of the CDF on Peace FM’s Kokrokoo programme, he alleged that instead of TOR paying the said amount to the original company who supplied the crude oil from, they rather made the payment to another company which he believes is non-existent.
Reacting to the allegations on the same platform, Mr. Ato Ampiah debunked the assertions describing them as fabrications put forward just to defame him. He explained that in the operations of TOR, they do not purchase crude oil with fiscal cash but rather uses ‘letters of credit’ from the bank. He added that even before the ‘letters of credit’ is issued out, painstaking investigations are conducted.
He therefore finds it difficult to understand how the CDF can claim that such an amount of money has been paid; much more to a wrong company. He vowed to seek redress at the law courts, since he claims the pressure group has maligned him.
But in a quick rebuttal, Mr. Omari Wadie dared the TOR MD to file a suit against him insisting that the explanations given by Mr. Ato Ampiah were a pack of lies and has documents which prove beyond all doubt that TOR and its board members were behind the 48 million dollar oil fraud. He promised to submit the documents for PeaceFM’s perusal by Friday.
Libya's Oil Head Says Too Early To Discuss OPEC Quota Exemption
LONDON -(Dow Jones)- It would be premature to discuss any exemption of Lybia from the oil production quota system with the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Libya's oil head said Friday.
Speaking to Dow Jones Newswires in a telephone interview, Shokri Ghanem, the chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp., said: "I don't think so" when asked if the North Africa country was seeking an exemption from OPEC's output ceiling system.
Libya's quota stands at 1.469 million barrels a day but its production has fallen dramatically following turmoil in the country.
Ghanem, a veteran of OPEC circles, said it is "too early to discuss" a special status for Libya. "We are keeping our quota," he said. Iraq is the only OPEC member exempt from the quota system.
However, the official, who is Libya's de facto oil minister, said the country's oil production is "down drastically," and production is being used for local consumption and refineries.
Libya normally produces around 1.6 million barrels of oil a day--slightly above its quota. But its exports are virtually at a standstill and have been replaced by some OPEC members, chiefly Saudi Arabia.
Several Libyan officials recently defected from Col. Muammar Gadhafi's regime, the highest profile of them Moussa Koussa, who resigned from his position as foreign affairs minister this week and is now in the U.K.
But Ghanem, asked if he was still in Libya, said: "I am in Tripoli, still working."
-By Benoit Faucon, Dow Jones Newswires; +44-20-7842-9266; benoit.faucon@ dowjones.com
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