Second Take: Botswana mining:
'via Blog this'
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Friday, June 29, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Corruption And Cheap Nigerian Crude Prices
Oil scam exposes how small firms sell at discounts
Comment on this story
Emma Farge Geneva
Little-known companies claiming to have privileged access to prized sweet crude oil from Nigeria are offering to sell it at such deep discounts that traders say the deals are too good to be genuine.
Documents seen by Reuters show spot cargoes of several hundred thousand barrels of crude can be picked up at discounts of up to $10 million (R84m). But the documents are suspiciously flawed, suggesting that the financial scams for which Nigeria is notorious have spread to its oil sector.
State oil company Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has placed a “scam alert” on its website warning of “unsavoury characters purporting to be bona-fide staff of the NNPC or contractors to NNPC or purchasers of Nigerian crude oil or contractors to the Nigerian government”.
The sellers include one British-registered company purporting to be near the top of a sales chain in which oil cargoes can change hands up to half a dozen times before being refined.
Two of the firms said they were able to sell oil cheaply because of special access to NNPC contracts.
The documents point to the difficulty faced by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in making reforms when there is considerable doubt over who is responsible for selling the oil.
Nigeria has pledged to take measures to fight corruption in the oil sector after a hike in state-subsidised petrol prices sparked mass protests in January.
One recent step has been the creation of higher barriers to entry for participation in NNPC’s 2012/13 term allocations. The results have not appeared since the initial tender document was released in March. On Tuesday Jonathan sacked the managing director of the NNPC and three other senior directors.
“To further strengthen the ongoing reforms… and in furtherance of efforts to achieve greater transparency and accountability… President Jonathan has approved the recomposition of the executive management team of the NNPC,” an official said.
Governance adviser at Revenue Watch Institute Alexandra Gillies said the proliferation of middlemen involved in selling Nigeria’s oil since Jonathan’s election last year had resulted in considerable uncertainty over ownership.
“If NNPC only issued term contracts to companies with the capacity to lift crude, then nobody would be able to pose as a company flipping (reselling) a cargo.
“The confusion is a symptom of Nigeria’s sub-optimal system for selling its oil,” she said.
A report that government-funded watchdog the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative sent to the authorities in January showed billions of dollars missing from oil revenues.
Five written offers reviewed by Reuters show a close resemblance to official paperwork circulated among traders, including documents attributed to NNPC, stamps from terminal operators and shipping lists with vessels and loading dates.
They include arcane oil market jargon such as “laycan”, which refers to the timeframe for loading and “STS”, meaning ship-to-ship transfer of the cargo.
One shipping list showed a tanker called the “Elsa Craig” – a name close to an actual Panama-flagged crude oil tanker called the Ailsa Craig 1 – next to other cargoes booked by western oil majors such as Chevron.
“They are full of imagination,” said a west African oil trader, commenting on the document.
A second oil trader with a London-based oil firm suspected that some of these offers were attempts to resell the oil siphoned off by thieves in the Niger Delta, since the majority of offers were for the local grade Bonny Light.
“A lot of this oil on the side may be bunkered (stolen) and does go to people in the Delta to sell. It’s a side business and I think some buyers are doing good business there,” he said.
A third oil trader said he had considered buying a cargo from an Abuja-based company called Sunny Industrial Lubricant but rejected it only after a member of the compliance team noticed a flaw in the NNPC logo.
NNPC’s logo – a green, red and yellow wagon wheel – has 20 spokes, compared with 22 on this document. “We discovered that the logo was not fully accurate. It’s difficult to distinguish and it’s a big risk,” said the oil trader who asked not to be named.
When contacted for comment, the firm’s chief executive, Sunny Eze, said he was able to gain access to oil produced in excess of Nigeria’s official Opec production target, known as “off-Opec” crude.
Another firm, the UK-registered Current Energy, said in an offer letter that it was reselling 5 million barrels a month of the benchmark Bonny Light grade obtained from an NNPC contract holder at $6 a barrel below the market price.
This amounts to a saving of $6m per cargo, about 7 percent on a cargo that would currently cost about $90m.
Reuters shipping data showed that 4 million to 8 million barrels of this grade, sourced from the Niger Delta, have been available for export monthly this year.
When contacted for comment company director Akin Aboaba said he was reselling oil obtained from an NNPC contract holder who had received the oil to compensate for oil spills from regional pipelines.
Nigeria’s oil is sold by equity holders including oil majors Total and Royal Dutch Shell, which have a stake in production and via term contracts handed mostly to oil trading companies. The large number of companies involved in selling oil via term contracts means it can be tough for even experienced traders to tell the difference between real and fake offers.
Industry sources said the number of companies selling Nigeria’s oil increased dramatically after Jonathan’s election as part of a strategy to broaden local participation in the country’s oil sector.
But critics point to this as an example of the cronyism that is helping to buttress support for Nigeria’s political elite.
“It will be interesting to see whether the issuing of the latest crude tender to include Nigerian companies is a return to the political patronage of the past dressed up as increasing Nigerian content,” said an oil industry consulting source in Nigeria.
Under every new regime, military or civilian, the list of those authorised to sell Nigerian crude is usually torn up and a new one issued to include friends of the new government.
Last year’s allocation list showed a considerable increase in recipients from 2010 and had more than 40 names ranging from top commodities trading houses such as Glencore and Trafigura to little-known Nigerian firms including Masters E and Delaney.
Term contracts allocated to oil companies without the know-how or logistics to handle multimillion-dollar oil shipments were often resold or “flipped” to other traders, industry sources said, making it hard to verify who really had the country’s oil to sell. – Reuters
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Monday, June 25, 2012
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Monday, June 18, 2012
Chris Kilowan And The Bribery Allegations Against MTN In Iran
I just spent quite a bit of time
dissecting the Reuters report on the deposition given by former MTN executive
Chris Kelowan.
He has made a good case that MTN and
even the South African government conspired to defeat sanctions to help Iran.
As a matter of interest boh General Electric and Halliburton were caught a
couple of years ago by US authorities having ongoing offices and substantial
investments and sales in Iran. How did the US authorities react?
1) Nobody was arrested for any
violation of criminal laws.
2) No company or individual was
cited for a civil fine or a penalty.
3) No US government contracts were
taken rom these major US corporations.
4) All that happened was that the US
Justice Department ordered the two big US companies to as follows; "To
wind up their operations in Iran within 5 years."
Some 20 years ago I was active in
the international trade sector in South Africa. I am pleased to report that
when a South African company is working on a deal in another country, the South
African government "rolls up its sleeves" and works like hell to get
the company the deal it is seeking. This is one of the few areas of government
where the taxpayer "truly gets his/her money's worth!" I never saw a
case where bribery or corruption to obtain a deal was used or even considered.
I suspect that the situation is the same today.
There was no real substantial
evidence of MTN actually paying bribes to Iranian officials. Perhaps some of
the Iranian companies did pay these bribes. That is an internal matter for the
Iranian authorities. I suspect that the penalty for bribing public officials in
Iran is hanging. By the way, hangings in Iran are carried out in a most
barbaric manner. The condemned person has a metal rope put around their neck. A
crane then lifts the metal rope. As a further matter of interest Iran is the
number one country in the world in per capital executions per 100,000 population.
So Iranians use the death penalty quite often.
One has to ask how much money
Turkcell has paid and promised to Mr. Kilowan.
The bottomline is this case is not
good. If I had some extra cash right now
I'd be buying MTN shares.
Saturday, June 16, 2012
Friday, June 15, 2012
South Africa Amoing Walmart's Five Countries Posing The Highest Risk Of Corruption
SA among Walmart’s five countries posing high risk of corruption
Walmart recommends that its employees in “certain
countries” make payments to police officers if they feel threatened by the
officer’s behaviour.
But the employee must first say that they are prepared to
pay “an official a recorded fine” if the law has been broken and ask for a
ticket or receipt. However: “If the police officer becomes angry, aggressive or
you feel threatened by the police officer’s behaviour, as your health and safety
is our priority, you may make the payment.”
This exception to an otherwise strict policy on bribery
and corruption is contained in a 14-page statement of ethics, which was updated
in February and issued by Walmart’s wholly owned subsidiary, International
Produce Limited.
The 14 pages contain detailed procedures, which are
intended to “reinforce our stance on bribery and corruption and to help our
colleagues and business partners to do the right thing when they are carrying
out our business”.
In what is understood to possibly be a reference to South
Africa and maybe China, Brazil, Mexico and India, the code notes: “Police in
certain countries stop our colleagues, mainly when driving, and ask for personal
payments. In some circumstances our colleagues have been threatened with being
locked in a cell if a payment is not made.”
The code recommends that to reduce risk, the “colleagues”
should ensure the vehicles are in good working order and properly licensed and
they should keep to the speed limit.
Walmart has had difficulty shaking off the topic of
corruption since April when the New York Times published damning allegations
that the group’s Mexican division had extensively used bribes to speed up its
store-opening process.
Earlier this week it emerged, from a letter written by
members of a US Congressional committee that has been tasked with investigating
the “Mexican bribes”, that Walmart’s legal advisers had identified five
countries that posed the greatest risk of corruption. The five first-tier
countries are Mexico, China, Brazil, India and South Africa.
The lawyers had been retained in 2011 “to conduct a broad
review of your anti-corruption policies and operations in Mexico, Brazil and
China”, stated the letter, which was addressed to Walmart’s chief executive
Michael Duke. As a result of the review, the lawyers recommended that Walmart
also evaluate its operations in India and South Africa.
The committee is investigating to determine whether or
not Walmart has contravened the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which
makes it illegal for American companies and individuals to pay bribes in foreign
countries.
It is evident from the letter that the committee is
frustrated by Walmart’s unwillingness to co-operate with the inquiry. “You have
provided us with no documents, you have declined to allow any Walmart employees
to brief our staff about the allegations.”
Commenting on the references to South Africa, a Walmart
spokesperson told Business Report yesterday that Massmart “has always maintained
a robust risk control environment… within the King 3 governance framework.”
The spokesperson said since the merger’s implementation
last June, a review of Massmart’s internal controls had been initiated to ensure
they were compliant with the FCPA.
Letter to
Wal-Mart Stores chief executive Michael Duke.
Angola's Vincente Rejects Corruption Fears
June 14, 2012 3:00 pm
Angola’s Vicente rejects corruption fears
High above the relentless traffic of Luanda, Angola’s capital, the man at the centre of the scramble for Africa’s natural resources is just back from his morning jog.
Manuel Vicente has spent the past decade stewarding an oil industry that now accounts for one in every 50 barrels of world production, forging Angola’s ties with China and building a personal portfolio that includes interests in banking and real estate. During 12 years as head of Sonangol, he transformed the state-owned oil company from the economic engine of the government’s military campaign during three decades of civil war into the continent’s foremost energy group, with assets from Iraq to Cuba and annual revenues of $34bn.
Mr Vicente graduated to Angola’s political inner sanctum in January when he was appointed minister of state for economic co-ordination – fuelling expectations that he is the chosen successor of José Eduardo dos Santos, the country’s authoritarian ruler since 1979. He swapped his office in Sonangol’s gleaming 23-storey downtown headquarters for the hilltop villas of the acacia-lined presidential enclave.
To the government’s critics, Mr Vicente embodies what Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an Angola expert at Oxford university, calls “the privatisation of power”. It is a model that fuses personal and state interests in the hands of a small ruling class that brooks little dissent. And it has brought the business interests of Angola’s elite to the attention of US authorities. A corruption investigation has drawn attention to the role of little-known local partners with political connections in multibillion dollar Angolan oil ventures – as well as the role of Mr Vicente himself.
In a rare interview, Mr Vicente says the local partner policy is here to stay. He shrugs off concerns that it could leave US and European companies on the wrong side of anti-corruption laws at home.
“It is their problem, they have to resolve it,” he tells the Financial Times. But he adds: “There is no corruption in that. It’s important that the world understands. The idea is to empower the locals and we’ll keep doing that surely, within the [Angolan] law.”
A genial engineer who studied at London’s Imperial College before joining the oil ministry, Mr Vicente’s leadership of Sonangol earned him a reputation for competence among the energy groups that pump Angola’s 1.8m daily barrels of crude. Total, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and others have invested tens of billions of dollars to double Angola’s output. It is a key source of crude for China and the US.
Since November, however, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice have been formally investigating the Angolan operations of Houston-based Cobalt International Energy.
In February Cobalt, whose biggest shareholder is US investment bank Goldman Sachs, made one of the most promising oil finds of recent years deep under Angolan waters. In April the FT revealed that Mr Vicente and two senior generals had held previously concealed stakes in Nazaki Oil and Gás, Cobalt’s local partner. At the time the venture was launched in 2010, Mr Vicente was running Sonangol, which awarded Cobalt its concession. US anti-corruption laws make it a crime to pay or offer anything of value to foreign officials to win business.
Mr Vicente says he was unaware that his investment company, Grupo Aquattro Internacional, had a stake in Nazaki. Aquattro pulled out of Nazaki after he realised this, he says. Nazaki, which has four other shareholders, did not respond to questions about its ownership.
“We are serious people,” Mr Vicente says. “We know very well our job and we know very well our responsibility. And we’ve never worked against the law.”
The minister concedes that, had he known about it, his indirect stake in Nazaki would have represented “a conflict of interests” with his leadership of Sonangol.
Michael Goldberg, a lawyer with Baker Botts representing Cobalt, says the company has spoken with Mr Vicente since the FT’s revelations. The details of that conversation will be passed to the US agencies investigating the matter, he adds. “Based on our investigation into this entire matter, including our most recent findings, we are more convinced than ever that Cobalt has not violated any US or Angolan laws,” Mr Goldberg says.
The SEC declined to comment on the progress of its investigation.
With the US and European Union separately preparing rules that would oblige companies to disclose details of tax payments to governments, Angola’s culture of secrecy poses a dilemma for foreign oil groups. “We’re not forbidding people to do that [disclose details],” Mr Vicente says. “What we are telling the people [is]: ‘Let’s do it together.’ ”
Just when the US probe raises delicate questions for western investors, the alliance that Mr Vicente has forged with suitors from the east appears to be growing only stronger. Mr Vicente is a chief architect of a network that melds state and private interests from Angola and China into what analysts describe as the emerging force in the race for Africa’s rich stocks of crude, metals and minerals.
Until recently Mr Vicente chaired China Sonangol, a Singapore-based joint venture between Sonangol and a band of private Hong Kong investors known as the 88 Queensway group. The 88 Queensway group owns China International Fund, which spearheads Angola’s vast infrastructure programmes. The terms of CIF’s contracts with the Angolan state are not publicly known. Mr Vicente has played a role in CIF’s expansion, helping it secure its multibillion dollar minerals and infrastructure deal in 2009 with the repressive junta that ruled Guinea at the time. Mr Vicente says the CIF is “completely separate” from Angola’s $10bn oil-for-infrastructure programme with the Chinese state.
China Sonangol, alone or in partnership with China’s state-owned oil group Sinopec, has amassed Angolan oil interests. Most recently, it was granted minority stakes in two new oil exploration blocks awarded to Cobalt and BP in December, according to company announcements. The venture’s position outside Sonangol means that it is subject to even less scrutiny than the opaque state oil group.
For all the clamour from foreign investors seeking a slice of Angola’s oil wealth, the UN estimates that more than a quarter of the country’s 18m people still live in extreme poverty, a decade after the civil war ended. Mr Vicente acknowledges what observers see as the most troubling development of Angola’s postwar years: the widening gulf between a super-rich elite and the rest.
“The government is really serious, engaged in combating poverty,” he says. “I’m a Christian guy. It doesn’t work if you are OK and the people around have nothing to eat. You don’t feel comfortable.”
Manuel Vicente has spent the past decade stewarding an oil industry that now accounts for one in every 50 barrels of world production, forging Angola’s ties with China and building a personal portfolio that includes interests in banking and real estate. During 12 years as head of Sonangol, he transformed the state-owned oil company from the economic engine of the government’s military campaign during three decades of civil war into the continent’s foremost energy group, with assets from Iraq to Cuba and annual revenues of $34bn.
More
On this story
- beyondbrics Out of which Africa?
- Sub-Saharan inequality threatens stability
- Comment The Chinese in Africa
- Cobalt presses on with Angola oil venture
- Editorial Unclear as oil
On this topic
- Diamond battle kicks off in High Court
- Cabinda peace call offers glimmer of hope
- Angola oil zone rebels offer peace talks
- BP, Total and Statoil secure Angola rights
IN Africa
Click to enlargeTo the government’s critics, Mr Vicente embodies what Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, an Angola expert at Oxford university, calls “the privatisation of power”. It is a model that fuses personal and state interests in the hands of a small ruling class that brooks little dissent. And it has brought the business interests of Angola’s elite to the attention of US authorities. A corruption investigation has drawn attention to the role of little-known local partners with political connections in multibillion dollar Angolan oil ventures – as well as the role of Mr Vicente himself.
In a rare interview, Mr Vicente says the local partner policy is here to stay. He shrugs off concerns that it could leave US and European companies on the wrong side of anti-corruption laws at home.
“It is their problem, they have to resolve it,” he tells the Financial Times. But he adds: “There is no corruption in that. It’s important that the world understands. The idea is to empower the locals and we’ll keep doing that surely, within the [Angolan] law.”
A genial engineer who studied at London’s Imperial College before joining the oil ministry, Mr Vicente’s leadership of Sonangol earned him a reputation for competence among the energy groups that pump Angola’s 1.8m daily barrels of crude. Total, BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil and others have invested tens of billions of dollars to double Angola’s output. It is a key source of crude for China and the US.
Since November, however, the US Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice have been formally investigating the Angolan operations of Houston-based Cobalt International Energy.
In February Cobalt, whose biggest shareholder is US investment bank Goldman Sachs, made one of the most promising oil finds of recent years deep under Angolan waters. In April the FT revealed that Mr Vicente and two senior generals had held previously concealed stakes in Nazaki Oil and Gás, Cobalt’s local partner. At the time the venture was launched in 2010, Mr Vicente was running Sonangol, which awarded Cobalt its concession. US anti-corruption laws make it a crime to pay or offer anything of value to foreign officials to win business.
Mr Vicente says he was unaware that his investment company, Grupo Aquattro Internacional, had a stake in Nazaki. Aquattro pulled out of Nazaki after he realised this, he says. Nazaki, which has four other shareholders, did not respond to questions about its ownership.
“We are serious people,” Mr Vicente says. “We know very well our job and we know very well our responsibility. And we’ve never worked against the law.”
The minister concedes that, had he known about it, his indirect stake in Nazaki would have represented “a conflict of interests” with his leadership of Sonangol.
Michael Goldberg, a lawyer with Baker Botts representing Cobalt, says the company has spoken with Mr Vicente since the FT’s revelations. The details of that conversation will be passed to the US agencies investigating the matter, he adds. “Based on our investigation into this entire matter, including our most recent findings, we are more convinced than ever that Cobalt has not violated any US or Angolan laws,” Mr Goldberg says.
The SEC declined to comment on the progress of its investigation.
The government is really serious, engaged in combating poverty. I’m a Christian guy. It doesn’t work if you are OK and the people around have nothing to eat. You don’t feel comfortable- Manuel Vicente, Angolan minister for economic co-ordination
Just when the US probe raises delicate questions for western investors, the alliance that Mr Vicente has forged with suitors from the east appears to be growing only stronger. Mr Vicente is a chief architect of a network that melds state and private interests from Angola and China into what analysts describe as the emerging force in the race for Africa’s rich stocks of crude, metals and minerals.
Until recently Mr Vicente chaired China Sonangol, a Singapore-based joint venture between Sonangol and a band of private Hong Kong investors known as the 88 Queensway group. The 88 Queensway group owns China International Fund, which spearheads Angola’s vast infrastructure programmes. The terms of CIF’s contracts with the Angolan state are not publicly known. Mr Vicente has played a role in CIF’s expansion, helping it secure its multibillion dollar minerals and infrastructure deal in 2009 with the repressive junta that ruled Guinea at the time. Mr Vicente says the CIF is “completely separate” from Angola’s $10bn oil-for-infrastructure programme with the Chinese state.
China Sonangol, alone or in partnership with China’s state-owned oil group Sinopec, has amassed Angolan oil interests. Most recently, it was granted minority stakes in two new oil exploration blocks awarded to Cobalt and BP in December, according to company announcements. The venture’s position outside Sonangol means that it is subject to even less scrutiny than the opaque state oil group.
For all the clamour from foreign investors seeking a slice of Angola’s oil wealth, the UN estimates that more than a quarter of the country’s 18m people still live in extreme poverty, a decade after the civil war ended. Mr Vicente acknowledges what observers see as the most troubling development of Angola’s postwar years: the widening gulf between a super-rich elite and the rest.
“The government is really serious, engaged in combating poverty,” he says. “I’m a Christian guy. It doesn’t work if you are OK and the people around have nothing to eat. You don’t feel comfortable.”
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Thursday, June 14, 2012
SABC Fire Damage Will Cost Millions
‘SABC fire damage will cost millions’
INLSA
Firefighters at the scene of a fire at SABC's studioes. Photo:
Antoine de Ras
A fire which broke out at the SA Broadcasting
Corporation's (SABC) studios would not interrupt popular soap operas, the public
broadcaster said on Thursday.
Acting chief operations officer Hlaudi Motsoeneng said
interim measures were in place to ensure production of “Generations”, “Muvhango”
and “Isidingo” would continue.
“We have five studios that are used to produce drama and
only one of them has burned down,” he said in a statement.
The soap operas were also recorded a few months before
they were aired on television.
“This means production will continue and the public need
not panic thinking the production of their favourite soapies might be affected.”
He said it would take a few months for operations to
return to normal but the SABC was confident it could maintain full production.
“The estimated value of the damage is around millions of
rands - our investigating team will be able to determine the exact value once
they finalise their investigations.”
No one was injured in the fire.
The cause of the blaze was not immediately known and an
investigation into this was underway, Motsoeneng said.
Earlier, Johannesburg emergency services spokesman Niel
Rooi said the fire broke out around 8pm on Wednesday.
Motsoeneng told Morning Live: “As the SABC we are very
shocked. As you know financially we are not sound.
“This is something that we don't know how to handle but
we will get there.” - Sapa
US Exempts South Africa From Iran Oil Sanctions
US exempts SA from oil sanctions
REUTERS
An Iranian worker rests in front of a huge portrait of Iran's
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on a wall near a university during Friday
prayers in Tehran February 24, 2012.
South Africa cut back enough on its Iranian oil imports
this year to get a six-month reprieve from US sanctions this week. But it will
have to cut back a lot more on its imports over these six months to avoid the US
sanctions kicking in next year.
The Department of Energy confirmed yesterday that the US
had given South Africa a 180-day exception to the sanctions on banks and other
financial institutions that are due to start at the end of this month.
The sanctions would have barred any South African bank or
other financial institutions that continued to do oil business with Iran from
the entire US financial system.
The department said the 180-day exception to the US
sanctions was “potentially renewable, provided there has been a significant
reduction of the crude oil from Iran during the period of the exception”.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had said in a
statement on Tuesday that South Africa was one of seven countries that had been
exempted from the sanctions because the nation had “significantly reduced”
imports of Iranian oil this year.
Brian Denver, the spokesman for the US embassy in
Pretoria, said yesterday that Clinton “has made the determination that South
Africa has significantly reduced its volume of purchases of Iranian crude oil,
and its importers intend to continue to reduce the volume of purchases of
Iranian crude oil”.
Industry sources said that the import cuts over the next
six months would probably be more difficult as the overall reductions so far had
been greatly helped by those oil companies, like Sasol, that had decided to stop
Iranian oil imports completely.
Over the next six months the remaining oil companies that
depend more than others on Iranian oil, will probably struggle to reduce their
dependency. Some have refineries that are technically adapted for Iranian oil.
They are likely to incur extra costs in altering their
refineries while all companies are expected to pay more for oil from other
sources as Iranian oil is selling at a discount precisely because of the
sanctions.
However, industry sources said the general drop in the
oil price had helped local oil firms deal with the effects of the US sanctions.
Oil prices fell for a fourth day in New York after
Clinton’s announcement on speculation that the US exemptions will limit the risk
of global supply disruptions.
Denver said: “We have seen that sanctions on Iran’s
central bank and oil sector are having an effect. According to the International
Energy Agency, Iran’s crude oil exports in 2011 were about 2.5 million barrels a
day, and have dropped to roughly 1.2 million to 1.8 million barrels a day.
“We will also continue to monitor closely developments in
the oil market, including supply, demand, inventories, and spare capacity, to
assure that the market can continue to accommodate a reduction in purchases from
Iran.”
Neither the South African nor the US governments would
say yesterday to what extent local imports of Iranian oil had dropped this year
or by exactly how much South Africa was expected to cut them over the next
months.
Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe merely told Parliament
that South Africa would cut its oil imports from Iran to “acceptable levels” to
comply with the sanctions.
International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite
Nkoana-Mashabane recently stated that even before the Iranian oil sanctions came
in, South Africa had been engaged in a strategy of diversifying its oil sources
away from the Middle East, towards Africa.
The Energy Department said the EU sanctions against Iran
due to kick in on July 1 still remained a hurdle. It said the problem was that
the EU had banned its insurers from insuring or reinsuring Iranian oil cargoes,
which “will make it impossible for importation of crude oil from Iran”.
The government would “continue to engage with the EU
about its sanctions”, the department said.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Niger Leader Urges Action On Mali
June 12, 2012 4:43 pm
Niger leader urges action on Mali
©Shaun Curry
'This threat is not merely a concern for the Sahel but for the entire world,' Mahamadou Issoufou said
Mahamadou Issoufou called on the UN to mandate west Africa’s regional bloc to use military force in Mali, should mediation efforts fail to quell a crisis that has cast a long shadow over the fragile nations of the Sahel region fringing the Sahara.
More
On this story
IN Africa
Mr Issoufou has won plaudits internationally since his victory a year ago in polls that marked a return to democracy after the 2010 coup that ended the authoritarian Mamadou Tandja’s decade in power, overseeing what he forecasts will be economic growth of 15 per cent this year.
The IMF forecasts growth of 13.4 per cent this year. But his strategy to transform the fortunes of one of the world’s poorest nations has been complicated by the unrest in Mali.
Malian troops who took power in a March coup before standing aside under regional pressure have failed to contain the northern insurrection by Tuareg separatists and Islamist insurgents with ties to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
“If AQIM establish a territory in Mali, they will try to claim territory across the whole of west Africa and they will try to reach into Europe,” said Mr Issoufou. “It is the ‘Afghanisation’ of the Sahel.”
While Niger has so far avoided a resurgence of armed separatism among northern Niger’s Tuaregs, their Malian cousins, backed by mercenaries who returned from Libya after the fall of Col Muammer Gaddafi, declared an independent state, only to be outmuscled by jihadists.
Mr Issoufou said Afghan and Pakistani militants were training Malian jihadists, who had been joined by fighters from Boko Haram, the Islamist group that is staging a bloody campaign of bombings and gun attacks in Nigeria.
The rebels had found common cause with the formidable drug gangs that move South American cocaine through west Africa to Europe, Mr Issoufou added, and established ties with Somalia’s al Shabaab Islamists.
If AQIM establish a territory in Mali, they will try to claim territory across the whole of west Africa and they will try to reach into Europe- Mahamadou Issoufou
Even as he warned of the risks of Mali’s crisis spreading discord beyond its borders, he offered an alternative vision of economic integration as an antidote to conflict.
Visiting Paris and London to court investment, Mr Issoufou said talks were under way with potential investors on extending to landlocked Niger the railways that connect the region’s big ports to the interior.
He said the new routes would be needed once a vast new mine at Imouraren more than doubled Niger’s uranium output to 9,000 tonnes a year making it the world’s second-biggest producer of the nuclear fuel, behind Kazakhstan.
The president said that François Hollande, his French counterpart, had assured him that the mine, operated by French nuclear group Areva, would come into production in 2014 as planned.
Chinese-led oil production, which began in November, was expected to reach 500,000 b/d over the next five years, placing Niger among the continent’s mid-ranking producers, Mr Issoufou added.
Oil and uranium will account for much of the 15 per cent growth Niger expects. But the president is also seeking a remedy to the region’s other affliction: a dependency on natural resource exports that stifles the broader economy and foments instability.
“We are in the process of breaking that [dependency],” Mr Issoufou said. His $12bn investment programme over five years is designed to build infrastructure, promote education and support his flagship project: to use irrigation and farming technology to bolster agriculture in an arid country of 16m people perennially stalked by famine.
“In Great Britain, France, Europe, development happened through agricultural surpluses that allowed the financing of industry,” Mr Issoufou said. “We are going to do that in reverse: it is with revenues from the mining industry that we will finance agriculture.”
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