W. Africa Crude-India takes Nigerian oil despite shipping concerns

India's HPCL awarded another tender to buy with Nigerian crude oil despite its concerns about shipping from the West African nation.

The refiner awarded a tender to buy November loading oil to Chevron, traders said, likely with Usan crude oil and either Agbami or Brass.

On Monday, HPCL said it had not yet been able to fix a vessel to load Nigeria's Qua Iboe crude oil for October loading, and warned it would carefully weigh any future purchases.

Indian refiners have proved particularly enthusiastic buyers of West Africa crude this week, both via tenders and some spot purchases.

"It's to do with good margins," one trader said, adding the country could also be adding to its strategic reserves. "But the letter of comfort is putting up a certain barrier."

While the letter of comfort issue had put off some buyers, others said they were able to get around it with watered down language that vessel owners and their insurers were comfortable with signing. But the issue has impacted freight rates.

Sources said spot buying from China had returned after a particularly quiet few months. Trader Unipec has purchased cargoes of Angolan crude oil on the spot market, according to market source.

Other spot buying was limited as tenders from India's IOC and Indonesia's Pertamina were still pending.

Nigeria sells T-bills for 53 bln naira as currency weakens

 

The Central Bank of Nigeria today sold 53.08 billion naira ($266.6 million)worth of treasury bills in a bid to mop up excess liquidity, dealers said, as the currency weakened on stronger demand from importers.

The bank issued the 275-day open market operations (OMO) bills at 13.50 percent, they said.

The interbank lending rate traded at 6 percent for overnight placement, almost unchanged from Monday's 5.83 percent.

The interbank market almost froze two weeks ago after authorities ordered banks to transfer all government revenues to its Treasury Single Account (TSA) with the central bank, part of an anti-corruption campaign.

To ease liquidity shortages, the central bank cut banks' cash reserve ratio to 25 percent last week.

The naira weakened against the dollar on the parallel market to 224.5 to the dollar from 223 a dollar the previous day on strong demand from importers stocking up ahead of forthcoming Christmas sales.

Nigerian importers have struggled to obtain dollars as the central bank has limited imports to offset a collapse in oil revenues, the economic lifeline of Africa's most populous country and biggest energy producer.

Gwadabe said speculation that government plans to change the colour of banknotes to stop forgeries could be another reason for the fresh pressure on the local currency.

The naira traded at 197 naira to the dollar on the official interbank market, unchanged since February.

New Electricity Tariff Becomes Effective In October

The Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is targeting 100 per cent revenue collection when the new tariff is effected in October.

Speaking with The Nation in a telephone conversation yesterday, its Chairman, Dr. Sam Amadi said the Distribution Electricity Companies (Discos) which are looking forward to tariff and revenue increase are yet to ramp up their payment.

According to him, the power distribution firms are however paying gradually.

He said: “The Discos are paying and we are expecting revenue increase. We are working on a new tariff . But the Discos are yet to ramp up payment. They are paying gradually.

“We are expecting more improvement in tariff and revenue collection.  We expect them to do 100 per cent as we are going when the new tariff becomes effective in October.”

Meanwhile, the management of Eko Electricity Distribution Plc (EKEDP) yesteray said it plans to abolish monthly fixed charges on its consumers.

Its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Oladele Amuda who spoke at a stakeholders forum in Lagos, said the company would present the proposal to NERC for approval.

“The company is proposing to abolish fixed monthly tariff charge from their bills but this has to be approved by NERC.

“I can assure you that if NERC approves the abolition of fixed charge by October, we will start to implement it immediately,” he said.

The chief executive officer urged consumers within the zone to embrace cost reflective tariff to enable the company serve them better.

Amuda lamented that the company is constrained by the present tariff regime which was not cost-reflective.

He said the new proposed tariff was N25 per kilowatt instead of the N17 per kilowatt that was being used to charge now.

Amuda said with the new tariff, the company would have sufficient money to change many transformers and conductors.

He said the company has engaged two Nigerian meter manufacturers to supply 50,000 prepaid meters outside Credit Advancement Payment Metering Installation (CAPMI) scheme.

He said these would be given to consumers with faulty meters and to replace all old meters.

Amuda assured that all consumers would be metered but advised consumers that could not wait to apply under CAPMI scheme.

He said the company had installed 34,565 prepaid meters to consumers in the zone under the scheme.

In a related development, the  Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) has sent out 4,008.53 Megawatts (Mw) to Discos, according to the Power Statistics of the Federal Ministry of Power.

Following the statistics which the ministry posted on its website yesterday, energy supply only dipped by 4.86Mw from the 4,013.39Mw sent out on  September 16.

The TCN however recorded a spinning reserve or stranded power of 89.78Mw that it could not wheel out of the 4 098.31Mw produced by the electricity generation companies (Gencos) .

Energy generated that was 4,099.72Mw on September 16 however dipped slightly to  4,098.31Mw on Sunday, indicating a relatively steady average power generation in the electricity market in 10 days.

The market however dropped from the 4,735Mw peak energy generation of September 16 to 4,405.3Mw last Sunday, resulting in gap of 329.7Mw.

In NESI, the highest power power generated is still the  4,810.7 Mw of August 25.

On the power generation, the chairman said there was fire outbreak in Kainji last week, adding were it not for this, power generation would have exceeded the aforementioned result.

Amadi added that power generation is also expected to increase very soon when the Calabar Power Plant comes on stream.
Source: onlinenigeria

NMRC to list N8bn bond on FMDQ OTC platform

The Nigeria Mortgage Refinance Company (NMRC) will on Wednesday list its N8 billion bond on the platform of FMDQ OTC securities exchange.

The bond is 14.9 percent NMRC 29-July-2030 series-1 under a N140 billion Medium-Term Note Programme.

The establishment of the NMRC in 2013 set in motion the course towards homeownership from accessibility to affordable, adequate and quality housing in the Nigerian economy, through the promotion and development of the primary and secondary mortgage markets in Nigeria.

Analysts say a crucial aspect in the achievement of the NMRC model is the raising of finance from the debt capital market through regular and large issuances of bonds.

As is the tradition with FMDQ, a listing ceremony will be held to commemorate this milestone where among others, the issuer, represented by the CEO of NMRC, the issuing house, represented by the MD of Dunn Loren Merrifield Advisory Partners, as well as the former coordinating minister of the economy, being one of the foundational members of the NMRC initiative, are expected.