News from Nigeria

FG targets 3 million bpd oil production by 2015 – Punch

The Federal Government is planning to raise the country’s crude oil production to three million barrels per day from the current average of about 2.5 million bpd by 2015, the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, has said. The Federal Government had initially set a target of achieving 40 billion barrels reserves and three million barrels per day production by 2010, but the goal could not be attained because of the Niger Delta crisis and reduced investments by oil firms. However, the new Total deepwater field, Usan, scheduled to come on stream in early 2012, is one of the projects that will take Nigeria closer to achieving the 2015 target. According to Alison-Madueke, the country also plans to build three new refineries of 445,000 bpd capacity. "Our aspiration is to increase crude oil reserves to at least 40 billion barrels and production of three million barrels per day respectively by 2015," the minister was quoted by Reuters as telling reporters at an investors’ conference in Lagos on Wednesday.

Okonjo-Iweala wants banks to raise agric financing portfolio – Guardian

THE Federal Government, on Tuesday, appealed to commercial banks to reposition their lending programmes to support critical growth areas of the economy.Speaking in Abuja at the signing ceremony of the Memorandum of Understanding for financing supply of seeds and fertilizers during the 2012 season, the Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, stressed the need for banks to deploy their expertise in agriculture financing. She called on the commercial banks to invest in human capital, better risk management techniques, and technology necessary to support lending to the agricultural sectors. In her words, “as things stand, agriculture contributes about 40 per cent of GDP but receives only two per cent of the total financing available to the private sector, banks should reposition their lending programmes to support critical growth areas of the economy, as highlighted in the President’s transformation

Flight dispute: BA slashes fare by 20% - Punch

British Airways on Wednesday slashed its business class fares by 20 per cent in line with a recent agreement reached between the United Kingdom government and Nigeria. Officials of the UK Department of Transport had met with their counterparts in the Ministry of Aviation three weeks ago to settle the dispute arising from allegation of price-fixing levelled against the carrier and breach of the Bilateral Air Service Agreement between both countries.

The British government had agreed at the meeting to help a Nigerian carrier recover its lost landing and take-off slots at the London Heathrow Airport. On allegations of high fares, the UK officials agreed to ask BA to slash its business class fares by 20 per cent.