China's state companies advance billion-dollar oil and banking deals while India's plans are now on hold
The Lagos State government, the Nigerian National Petroleum
Corporation and the China State Construction Engineering Corporation
signed an US$8 billion deal this month for a 300,000 barrel-per-day
oil refinery and a liquefied petroleum gas refinery that will
produce 500,000 tonnes a year in the Lekki Free Trade Zone. Lagos
will provide land and infrastructure for the project; the CSCEC
will provide 80% of the finance and the NNPC will raise the rest.
This plan, however, worries India's companies in Nigeria, especially
ONGC Mittal Energy (OMEL), the consortium created by New Delhi's
state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and the Mittal Group
(AAC Vol 3 No 2). OMEL had sought assurances of support from the
NNPC and the Nigerian government in December last year for its
plans to build a refinery in the Lekki Free Trade Zone but the
deal has gone awry.
Plans to sell the state-owned Nigeria Telecommunications (Nitel)
have floundered after China Unicom announced it would not be contributing
to the front-running New Generation Consortium comprised of China
Unicom Europe, the...
The coming referendum is concentrating minds - Sudanese, Chinese
and Western - on how the oil wealth will be shared
China's oil interests in Sudan will come under heavy scrutiny
again as Khartoum and Juba start negotiations on sharing oil revenues
after the independence referendum due in January 2011. Backed
by...