Oil Continues Climb on OPEC+ Decision, Gas Crunch

By Adedapo Adesanya The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reaffirmed its support for the removal of fuel subsidy and the exchange rate unification of the administration of President Bola Tinubu, insisting that the policies are good for Nigeria’s economy. A representative of the global lender, Mr Ari Aisen, while featuring on Channels TV on Tuesday, maintained that the two policies must remain for Nigeria to reach macroeconomic stability. “After the position that needs to be well managed to avoid potential reversal, policies of subsidizing fuel, and controlling exchange rate will lead to a much better outlook for the Nigerian economy,”

By Adedapo Adesanya Foreign trading and investment firm, Risevest, has acquired Chaka, a digital trading platform. According to Techcabal, which first broke the news, the deal, which was for an undisclosed sum, will see both entities operate as different products, though the capitalisation table of the acquiree will be updated in due course. Speaking on this, Mr Tosin Osinbodu, Chaka’s founder, said, “I’m excited about how Chaka’s product will evolve and how we’re going to learn from the Risevest team.” “With booming growth in many nations around the world, investors can now own a stake in the growth of other

By Aduragbemi Omiyale The value of unsold finished products in the inventory of Nigerian manufacturers in the first half of 2023 increased by 44/9 per cent on a year-to-date basis to N272 billion from N187 billion in the same period of 2022. This information was contained in the report released by the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) on Tuesday. According to Punch, the document also revealed that in the period under review, the manufacturing sector laid off 3,567 workers due to the harsh business environment triggered by high inflation, the foreign exchange (FX) crisis, and fuel subsidy removal. “This increase

By Adedapo Adesanya **As NCDC Confirms 102 Deaths from Lassa Fever in 2021 Greece has donated about one million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Nigeria as the federal government moves to ensure more citizens are vaccinated against the disease. A delegation from the European country led by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Nikolaos Dendias, announced the donation of the vaccines in Abuja on Monday. Mr Dendias made the announcement at a meeting with the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, and other Nigerian government officials. He said Nigeria and Greece have enjoyed a favourable bond over the years

By Ahmed Rahma Activities are yet to commence at Nigeria’s land border with the Benin Republic, Seme border, despite the directive of the federal government on Wednesday that it should be reopened immediately. Two days ago, after the weekly Federal Executive Council n(FEC) meeting in Abuja, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, said the Seme border and three other land borders closed in August 2019 should be reopened with immediate effect. But reports suggest that the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the others are still expecting official directives to reopen

By Dipo Olowookere Last week, a total turnover of 2.051 billion shares worth N16.126 billion in 13,508 deals were traded by investors on the floor of the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), lower than the total of 896.610 million shares valued at N16.561 billion that exchanged hands the previous week in 12,638 deals. During the week, stocks in the financial services sector led the activity chart by volume with 1.784 billion shares valued at N12.588 billion traded in 8,469 deals, contributing 87.00 percent and 78.06 percent to the total equity turnover volume and value respectively. This was trailed by equities in

By Dipo Olowookere Investment in Nigerian stocks declined last week to N9.5 billion from N11.5 billion in the preceding week just as the All-Share Index and market capitalisation declined by 0.18 per cent to close at 38,256.95 points and N19.940 trillion respectively. Data from the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited showed that similarly, all other indices finished lower with the exception of premium, pension, insurance and oil/gas indices, which appreciated by 0.96 per cent, 0.16 per cent, 1.01 per cent and 0.85 per cent respectively, while the ASeM index closed flat. A total of 1.0 billion shares were traded in 17,577

By Dipo Olowookere The last trading session in the first half of 2021 ended on a positive note as the stock market appreciated by 0.71 per cent following buying interest in Nestle Nigeria, Oando and others. At the market on Wednesday, the All-Share Index (ASI) improved by 266.53 points to 37,907.28 points from 37,640.75 points, while the market capitalisation went up by N138 billion to N19.760 trillion from N19.622 trillion. Business Post observed that the consumer goods sector mainly lifted the market yesterday as the counter recorded a 4.80 per cent growth, followed by the energy index with 0.70 per

By Adedapo Adesanya Total Currency-in-Circulation (CIC) rose by 0.8 percent to N2.3 trillion as at the end of December 2018 according to the 2018 Annual Report released by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) through the Currency Operations Department (COD). This rise in circulation according to the report reflected the high dominance of cash in the economy and increase in economic activities. In terms of volume, the proportion of higher denomination banknotes – N100, N200, N500 and N1000 in total rose from 41.9 percent to 44.3 percent while in terms of value, it rose from 96.9 percent to 97.6 percent.

By Dipo Olowookere As part of efforts to bridge the projected medium-term gas supply gap expected by 2020, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Seplat Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) have signed five agreements to expedite the development of a project aimed at delivering about 3.4 billion standard cubic feet of gas per day by 2020. The project, Assa North and Ohaji South (ANOH) gas development scheme, is one of the 7 Critical Gas Development Projects (7CGDP) which is aimed at boosting gas production and infrastructure development. It was gathered that the MoU signed include the AGPC Shareholders Agreement between

By Adedapo Adesanya The unlisted securities market appreciated by 0.18 per cent on Tuesday and this was majorly influenced by the growth in the share price of FrieslandCampina WAMCO Plc. Business Post reports that the milk producer closed the session at N127.25 per unit compared with the previous N120.08 per unit after its value went up by N7.17 or 5.6 per cent. This pushed the total value of securities on the NASD Over-the-Counter (OTC) Securities Exchange higher by N1.16 billion to N656.09 billion from N654.93 billion it closed on Monday. Also, it lifted the NASD Unlisted Security Index (NSI) by