Tight Supplies, Weak Greenback Buoy Oil Prices

By Adedapo Adesanya Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, has said the country is unable to clear up to $6.8 billion of overdue forward payments in the foreign exchange market, noting that this is preventing the Naira from gaining stability. Speaking in an interview on Thursday, Mr Edun lamented that the country’s FX market is facing a serious liquidity crisis due to low flows. “The issue we have now is that the market is not liquid enough,” he said in an interview in New York, per Bloomberg. The Minister said that resolving the overdue contracts would allow the Naira

By Adedapo Adesanya The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has disclosed that Nigeria saw a 65.7 per cent or N76.77 billion increase in earnings from the solid minerals sector in 2021 to N193.59 billion from the N116.82 billion achieved in 2020. This upward trajectory has been on for the past five years, according to a report from the agency. The Executive Secretary of NEITI, Mr Orji Ogbonnaya Orji, however, lamented that this is still abysmal considering the potential of the sector to the Nigerian economy. He said this while presenting the solid minerals sector report in Abuja, noting that

By Adedapo Adesanya The Naira closed mixed at the foreign exchange (FX) market on Friday, depreciating against the US Dollar in the Investors and Exporters (I&E) and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) segments and appreciating in the parallel market amid a new leadership at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). On Friday, the CBN announced the resumption of Mr Olayemi Cardoso as the next head of the apex bank, in an acting capacity pending his confirmation by the Nigerian Senate. He is taking over the role amid a worrying FX market, high inflation, and increased call to halt interest rate hikes which currently

By Dipo Olowookere The fresh 5.1 billion shares of Jaiz Bank Plc sold to billionaire businessman, Mr Mohammed Indimi, have been listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited. The additional stocks were allowed to trade on the exchange on Monday, October 4, 2021, a notice from the NGX and sighted by Business Post stated. Jaiz Bank, an Islamic financial institution trading its equities on the stock exchange, sold a total of 5,076,923,077 ordinary shares of the company to Mr Indimi, an in-law to President Muhammadu Buhari. The shares were purchased by the business mogul, who owns Oriental Energy Resources, at

By Dipo Olowookere No fewer than 285 truck drivers on the payroll of Dangote Group of Companies Plc have been declared wanted. Also, an unnamed number of another set of drivers are said to be at large. The drivers were alleged to have stolen about 3.5 million customised tyres belonging to the company. Addressing newsmen on Sunday in Lokoja, Kogi State, Coordinator of Dangote’s National Patrol Unit, Mr Abdullahi Magaji, who is a retired Commissioner of Police, explained that each tyre of the company had an identification number and the number was registered with the driver’s name at collection point.

By Dipo Olowookere The Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) returned to the danger zone on Monday after closing green last Friday. Yesterday, the market depreciated by 0.13 percent, expanding the year-to-date loss to 15.41 percent. At the close of transactions, the All-Share Index (ASI) decreased by 28.88 points from 22,705.19 points from 22,734.07 points, while the market capitalisation reduced by N15 billion to N11.832 trillion from N11.847 trillion. The activity level weakened during the session, with the volume of shares going down by 24.78 percent to 551.5 million from 733.2 million and the value of shares decreasing by 43.66 percent to

By Kestér Kenn Klomegâh On January 30, Belarusian President, Alexander Lukashenko, paid a working visit to hand over in a special ceremony Belarusian agricultural vehicles, tractors and equipment to President Emmerson Mnangagwa in Harare, Zimbabwe. “First of all, I want to thank the Americans and the entire Western world for having imposed sanctions against us. Otherwise, American and German tractors would have come instead of Belarusian ones to this huge field,” Lukashenko said. The Belarusian leader noted that in Zimbabwe, there are the friends of Belarus, with whom Minsk is building cooperation for the sake of achieving the common good.

By Dipo Olowookere The board of directors of Lafarge Africa Plc has announced the appointment of Ms Sylvie Rochier, who is presently a Non-Executive Director of the company, as the new Vice-Chairman of the board. Her appointment followed the resignation of former occupier of the position, Mr Guillaume Roux, who left the firm on April 6, 2018. A statement issued by the cement maker disclosed that the appointment of Ms Rochier took effect from Saturday, April 7, 2018. It was further disclosed that two non-executive directors of the company, Dr Adebayo Jimoh and Mr Umaru Kwairanga have also resigned from

By Dipo Olowookere Traffic units in all the 57 Local Governments and Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in Lagos State have been disbanded by the state Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode. Also, the Governor has directed the cancellation of all official number plates currently in use and has further directed re-issuance of new official number plates to all government owned vehicles, while retired staff are to forfeit same henceforth. Mr Ambode gave the order on Tuesday following complaints from residents alleging gross abuse by council officials in the state. Speaking with newsmen in Alausa on Tuesday at a press conference, the

By Investors Hub The major U.S. index futures are pointing to a higher opening on Tuesday, with stocks likely to extend the upward move seen in the previous session. Stocks may benefit from optimism about looming trade talks between the U.S. and China even though President Donald Trump said he doesn’t expect much progress from the talks. Trading activity is likely to be relatively subdued, however, with a lack of U.S. economic data likely to keep traders on the sidelines. In the coming days, trading may be impacted by reaction to reports on new and existing home sales and durable

By Modupe Gbadeyanka To curb or reduce and illegal banking transaction in Nigerian banking system, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in 2015 directed all account holders home and abroad to enrol for a bank verification number also known as BVN. BVN is an 11 digit identification number that gives every Nigerian with a bank account a unique identity that can be verified across the banking industry in Nigeria. This means even if you have accounts with all banks in Nigeria, you only need one BVN and you can link it to all other accounts. This article will explain all you