Nigeria settles $5.1 billion debt with oil companies

Nigeria reached a $5.1 billion settlement to reimburse foreign oil companies including Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell Plc for past operating costs.

The amount, less than the $6.8 billion previously discussed, will be settled through crude-oil sales over five years and will be interest free, Petroleum Minister Emmanuel Kachikwu told reporters in the capital, Abuja, Thursday.

“What we have been able to put together has enabled us to shave about $1.7 billion in savings for the federal government from the $6.8 billion that was owed,” he said. “The barrels to pay those will come from incremental barrels generated by the oil companies, not from the current 2.2 million-barrel-a-day production.

“In other words, if we do not meet those thresholds we will not pay the $5.1 billion,” he said.

Exxon, Shell, Chevron Corp., Total SA and Eni SpA are owed money for costs incurred from 2010 to 2015. Nigeria still owes the companies $2.6 billion from operations this year.

Shell and Total declined to comment. The other producers didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment.

Nigeria could pay more than its share of costs from October to December this year to reduce the outstanding bill for 2016 to $1.5 billion, Kachikwu said.

Revenues Squeezed

Crude’s collapse has hurt the economies of oil-producing countries including Venezuela and even Saudi Arabia. Lower government revenues have prevented state-run companies from contributing their share of expenses and foreign producers -- also hurt by the slump -- in some cases haven’t been paid.

In Nigeria, the debt has been a point of contention for the oil companies, and the settlement could unlock investment. The agreement is likely to result in $15 billion of spending by the international oil companies, which may be announced within weeks, the minister said. That could bring back some of their projects in the country, he said.

Nigeria surpassed Angola as Africa’s biggest oil producer in October, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The country is restoring output shuttered by militant attacks and is exempt from any potential production cuts by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which is due to meet in Vienna later this month.

Kachikwu sees oil production rising to 2.5 million barrels a day by 2019 and 3 million by 2021. The country also plans to reduce production costs to $18 a barrel in two years from $27 now, and to $15 a barrel in four years.

Bloomberg

Nigerian executed in Singapore for drug trafficking

Singapore on Friday executed two foreigners convicted of drug trafficking, authorities said, a day after the city-state’s highest court rejected final bids for both men to escape the gallows.

The Nigerian and Malaysian were hanged after their last minute appeals were thrown out.

“A 38-year-old male Nigerian national, Chijioke Stephen Obioha, had his death sentence carried out on 18 November 2016 at Changi Prison Complex,” the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) said in a statement.

Obioha, who came to Singapore hoping to be a footballer, was convicted of trafficking 2.6 kilograms of cannabis in 2008. Under Singapore law, anyone caught with more than 500 grams of cannabis can be sentenced to death.

A change in the law in 2013 meant that Obioha could apply to be re-sentenced, opening up the possibility of a life sentence, but he turned it down, the CNB said.

Just before he was to be hanged in 2015, Obioha’s lawyer filed for a stay in execution, which was allowed by Singapore’s highest court, marking the start of a legal rollercoaster which saw Obioha applying and withdrawing several legal options.

On Thursday, his lawyers launched a final bid to have his sentence commuted to life in prison but were turned down by a three-judge court.

Separately, the CNB also confirmed the execution of 31-year-old Malaysian Devendran Supramaniam, who was convicted of trafficking heroin.

He was arrested in May 2011 at Singapore’s border checkpoint with Malaysia carrying 2.7 kilograms of a powdery substance that contained 83.36 grams of pure heroin.

Like Obioha, Devendran launched an eleventh-hour appeal on Thursday to stay his execution, but was turned down.

Singapore takes a strong stand against crime and imposes the death penalty on offences such as murder and drug trafficking.

But human rights groups, which have called on Singapore to abolish capital punishment, condemned the execution.

“By executing people for drug-related offences, which do not meet the threshold of most serious crimes, Singapore is violating international law,” Rafendi Djamin, Amnesty International’s director for Southeast Asia and the Pacific said in a statement Wednesday calling for a halt to Obioha’s execution.

Singapore executed four people in 2015, one for murder and three for drug offences, according to prison statistics.

Malaysia also uses capital punishment, executing murderers and drug traffickers by hanging, a system which, like that in Singapore, dates back to British colonial rule.

Guardian

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