By  Gawoon Philip Vahn,  Eesha Muneeb  and Anita Nugraha | — Indonesia recently decided to source all of its heavy crude oil requirements from domestic field operators as Jakarta continues to find ways to cut its hefty energy import bills — a move that could put an end to the country’s dependency on African and South American supplies. Indonesia imported around 25 million barrels of crude over January-April, almost 50% lower than 48 million barrels received during the same period a year earlier, as the country …

By Council on Foreign Affairs | Introduction The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is a bloc of fourteen oil-rich states spanning the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Combined, the group controls close to forty percent of world oil production. This dominant market position has at times allowed OPEC to act as a cartel, coordinating production levels among members to manipulate global oil prices. OPEC’s golden era occurred in the 1970s, when the United States became increasingly reliant on foreign oil as a …

By Steve Okoekpen | – Market analysts and stakeholders will all agree that oil producers and consumers endured a turbulent period, as the oil market has had a tough time this year, with prices sliding since October. And yet, there have been a radical turn of events over last week, with the outlook looking drastically different with seismic optimism as the markets opened for trading last week. It is important to note that one of last week’s  biggest market movements was oil, with brent crude …

By Sunny Awhefeada |  – The Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) manifests ambivalence in its dealings with the people of the Niger Delta region where it has explored and exploited crude oil for six decades beginning in 1956 when it struck fortune in Oloibiri. Shell (as SPDC) is generally and sometimes fondly called among the people of the Niger Delta region has become a significant index in the consciousness of the people. Shell registered its presence in many communities where it found oil and turned their …

By Elisha Bala-Gbogbo | – When it comes to the future of its oil industry, Nigeria is looking miles out to sea. By early next year, the largest  offshore production vessel ever delivered to Nigeria will start pumping crude from a deposit deep beneath the seabed, boosting the West African country’s oil output by about 10%. The project, viewed as the most ambitious in Nigeria’s history, could help to push production to a record by 2022. The project will help to boost the share of the nation’s …

By Stanley Opara | – Nigeria’s oil sector is fast losing its relevance given the market realities of today, the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) recently warned. With this, the country might be taking an uncalculated risk, as actions by the Federal Government have not shown its readiness to depend less on oil. STANLEY OPARA looks at the status quo and the pressing need to see beyond oil. Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product and average Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) oil price reveals a strong …

By Global Risk Insights | – Over the past few years, Nigeria, Africa’s top oil exporter, has been beset by a multitude of problems, notably decreased crude production and exports, oil theft and pipeline attacks, stalled economic reforms and recovery, and the threat of oil price volatility. While the Nigerian oil industry has been cautiously optimistic about overcoming these upheavals in 2018, the nation has and will continue to face several acute challenges. In May 2018, the Nigerian petroleum industry underwent production complications as outages …

By Michael Hewson | – For someone who has claimed to be unhappy about rising oil prices the Trump administration sure has a funny way of showing it, or taking steps to achieve it. Having implemented a raft of tax cuts at the beginning of the year to put more money in consumers’ pockets the White House administration’s action since then have served to erode the benefit of that fiscal boost, over the few weeks. In the wake of pulling the US out of the …