Nigeria's Fidelity Bank says 3 executive directors to retire

Nigeria's Fidelity Bank has said three of its top directors would bow out of the institution at the end of June and July, the bank said on Tuesday.

Fidelity Bank in a notice to the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) said the executive directors who will be retiring from the service of the bank are its Executive Directors Risk 2, Mrs. Onome Olaolu, Executive Director, Corporate 3, Mr. John Obi and Executive Director Lagos and South West, Mr. IK Mbagwu, Director.
According to the Bank, Olaolu and Obi will retire today (June 30,), while Mbagwu has indicated his intention to proceed on early retirement with effect from July 31.
"The retirements are in accordance with the Bank's Human Capital Policy and predicated on attainment of retirement age by the said Executive Directors. The retirements have been approved by the Board of Directors," Fidelity Bank said.
The Bank had earlier appointed a new Chief Risk Officer to understudy the out-going Executive Director, Risk and it has concluded the appointment process on successors to the other executive positions.

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CBN says account holders can access cash as BVN deadline ends today

Contrary to the claims by Deposit Money Banks (DMB) that there would be total restriction on accounts without Bank Verification Number (BVN), after the deadline today, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has clarified that account holders can still have access to cash transactions while the e-banking transactions would be restricted.
The BVN is an initiative of the CBN and the Bankers’ Committee, launched on February 14, 2014. It is a unique identifier for each bank customer across the financial industry, making it possible to build and track customer financial history and activity.
The CBN had last year issued a directive to all banks to ensure that their customers register for BVN before June 30th, 2015, so as to protect all e-banking transactions from fraudulent attacks.
Meanwhile, the Apex bank has said there would be no extension of deadline and that enough time has been given to customers to enroll for the BVN.
A visit by BusinessDay to some banks operating in Lagos revealed long queues of customers in the banking halls rushing to enroll for the BVN before the deadline.
Before now, messages hasdbeen flying from Deposit Money Banks in the country warning customers about account restriction after the June 30 deadline.
A text message from one of the banks read: “dear customer, accounts without BVN will soon be restricted. Enroll for/submit your BVN at any branch from Monday to Saturday”.
There had been claims that 62 million bank accounts may face restriction for failure to register. Reacting to this, Ibrahim Muazu, director, corporate communications department, CBN, said this was an exaggeration. He noted that many individuals and corporates do have more than one account and some in two deposit money banks, for example current, savings, domiciliary among others.
“Holders and a person requires only one BVN linked to all his accounts in any number of banks”, he said in chat with BusinessDay.
“Without BVN, you still have access to your cash but services/facilities (internet/mobile banking, loans etc) will have some restrictions”, Muazu said further.
Currently, only about 14 million out of about 76 million bank accounts have so far complied.
Seyi Ademosun, project manager, BVN, Nigerian Inter-bank Settlement Systems Plc (NIBSS) last week said the number of registered customers has been projected to increase to 20 million by the end of this month.

CULLED FROM BUSINESSDAY

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Nigeria's Oando sells 60 pct of downstream business to Vitol

Nigeria's Oando has agreed to sell a 60 percent stake in its downstream business to Vitol and Helios Investment Partners for $276 million, the energy company said on Tuesday.
    Oando, which is shifting away from being a marketer of refined petroleum products into an oil and gas explorer, completed the acquisition of ConocoPhillips's upstream oil and gas business in Nigeria last year.
    Its downstream business, with a market share of 12 percent in Nigeria, will be set up as an independent entity, but will retain the Oando brand, the company said in a statement. The consortium will acquire 51 percent of the voting rights.
    Oando's downstream assets include more than 400 petrol stations in Nigeria and an interest in a bulk distribution company in Ghana, it said. Oando also has listings in Toronto and Johannesburg .
    Soros-backed Helios has already partnered with Vitol to distribute Shell-branded fuels and lubricants in 16 African countries and is confident the new deal will capitalise on the 3-5 percent annual growth in Nigerian demand for oil products.
    Nigeria exports nearly 2 million barrels per day of oil but imports the bulk of its refined products because its refining capacity is unable to meet its daily fuel consumption of 40 million litres.
    Vitol has bought downstream assets such as storage and refineries in Europe, most recently in conjunction with Carlyle Group in the Varo Energy venture.

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S.Africa's energy regulator rejects Eskom tariff increase request

South Africa's energy regulator rejected a tariff hike request by cash-strapped utility Eskom  because crucial information was missing in the firm's application.
Eskom asked for power prices to be raised by 9.58 percent to help it run gas turbines and pay for power provided by independent electricity producers.
Jacob Modise, the chairman of the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (NERSA) chairman said crucial information was missing in the application and that Eskom could submit a new application for a tariff increase.
The hike Eskom requested from the regulator would have brought the total increase this year to over 22 percent after prices also rose in April in Africa's most advanced economy.
The public enterprises minister has said the state-owned utility would have to tap debt markets if it failed to get the tariff increase it was seeking.
 "If NERSA doesn't give the increase then Eskom will have to re-examine its finances and go out and borrow," Public Enterprises Minister Lynne Brown was quoted as saying by the Business Day newspaper on Monday.  
Eskom, which imposes blackouts on an almost daily basis due to inadequate electricity capacity, is facing a funding gap to 2018 of up to 200 billion rand ($16 billion).
The government has pledged to provide Eskom with a 23 billion rand capital injection and a 60 billion rand loan from the state will be converted into equity to improve the utility's liquidity and boost its borrowing capacity.

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Nigeria plans to sell 180-240 bln naira bonds in Q3

Nigeria plans to issue 180 billion to 240 billion naira of five and 20-year bonds in the third quarter, the Debt Management Office (DMO) said on Monday.
The DMO raised 210.22 billion naira ($1.1 billion) through government bond sales in the second quarter.
The debt management office plans to sell the 15.54 percent 2020 bond at auctions in July, August and September with 35-45 billion naira on offer each month.
It said it would also offer the 12.1493 percent 2034 bond in July, August and September with 25-35 billion naira on offer each month.

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Ghana replaces head of troubled Tema oil refinery

Ghana's President John Mahama has replaced the head of the Tema Oil Refinery, the presidency said on Monday, in yet another management change at the cash-strapped 45,000 barrel-per-day plant.
The facility, Ghana's sole refinery, has been plagued with regular shutdowns due to lack of funds for its operations and for the supply of crude for processing.
The new managing director, Kingsley Awuah-Darko, will be the refinery's seventh managing director in ten years, the presidency said in a statement.
A businessman with expertise in the financial sector, Darko currently heads the state-run Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company. He replaces Alphonse Dorcoo, who took office barely two years ago.    
Ghana produces around 100,000 barrels per day of crude at its offshore Jubilee field and it also imports oil for domestic consumption.
Mahama said last year the government was seeking an external partner for the refinery.

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Nigerian interbank rates ease on budget cash injection

Nigeria's interbank lending rate eased to an average of 6 percent on Friday from 15 percent last week thanks to increased naira liquidity from monthly budgetary allocations to government agencies.
About 220 billion Nigerian naira ($1.1 billion) in budget allocations to the three tiers of government - federal, state and local - was injected into the banking system late on Thursday, boosting liquidity and forcing down lending rates.
Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy, distributes revenue from oil exports and taxes among its three tiers of government every month and the portion for states and local government passes through the banking system.
 Traders said in spite of the mopping up of about 203 billion naira through sales of Treasury bills on open market operations, net credit of 160 billion naira in matured Treasury bills was injected back into the system.
"Lending rates among banks are seen stable at the present level next week because we expect the market to remain liquid unless the central bank embarks on aggressive mopping up of excess liquidity," one trader said.
Banks credit balance with the central bank stood at 404 billion naira on Friday.
Both the secured open buy back (OBB) and overnight placement rates closed at 6 percent on Friday, down from 15 percent last week and below the benchmark central bank lending rate of 13 percent. Overnight placement was also at 15 percent last week.

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Yields on Nigerian bonds seen falling

 Nigeria's bond yields are expected to witness increased buying, especially by local pension funds, that could lead to a drop in yields by around 20 basis points, traders said.
    Yields rose across maturities this week on a sell-off by some offshore investors on concerns on new foreign exchange restrictions by the central bank aimed at conserving its dwindling foreign exchange reserves, traders said.
    Traders said the new measures had spurred a sell-off by some offshore investors on concerns they could hinder capital repatriation. The rules curb access to forex to fund purchase of foreign shares and bonds, among others.
    "We expect to see a moderate fall in yields across all tenor next week due to increase liquidity from budget allocation and remittance to pension funds by the government," one dealer said.
    The yield on the benchmark debt maturing in 2024 rose to 14.28 percent on Friday from 13.82 percent a week ago.
    The 2022 paper yield climbed to 14.48 percent from 13.93 percent, while the 2016 debt advanced to 14.39 percent against 13.83 percent last week.

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Nigeria central bank curbs FX access for Eurobonds, other items

Nigeria's central bank has curbed access to the interbank currency market for the purchase of foreign currency bonds as well as a range of goods to tighten liquidity and conserve reserves.
    The bank said importers could no longer get hard currency from the interbank market to buy items such as rice, cement, private jets, other construction materials, plastic and rubber products, soap, cosmetics, furniture and Indian incense.
    Analysts said the latest measures risked diverting dollar demand to the black market, worsening perceptions about economic policy and delaying a decision to devalue the naira in the wake of weak oil prices.
    "We see this policy move as confirmation that FX supply remains extremely tight. But more worryingly, it suggests that the central bank remains reluctant to devalue the naira," said Yvonne Mhango, sub-Saharan Africa economist at Renaissance Capital.
    The naira, which was trading at 198.50 on the interbank market, sold for 220 against the dollar at the black market in the commercial capital Lagos on Wednesday.
    Currency and bond markets in Africa's biggest economy have come under pressure since the price of oil, Nigeria's main export, plunged. The central bank has spent $3.4 billion to prop up the naira since it fixed the exchange rate in February and tightened trading rules to curb speculation.
    The central bank is due to hold a news conference at 1400 GMT in Abuja to discuss the new measures, a spokesman for the bank's governor said.
    Central bank officials met chief executives and treasurers from commercial lenders last week to discuss the impact of its policies on the foreign exchange market, but stopped short of announcing any decisions on how to make the naira more liquid.
    The bankers suggested in the meeting that the central bank should adopt a free-float regime in addition to raising interest rates to attract offshore investors back into bonds, two people who attended the meeting told Reuters.
    The central bank, which declined comment, has said in the past that floating the currency was not option.
    JP Morgan has warned it might remove Nigeria from its Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) if does not restore liquidity to currency markets in a way that allows foreign investors tracking its benchmark to trade with minimal hurdles.
    "This sudden change in policy underlines the difficulties the central bank is facing in managing FX reserves, which points to possibly greater exchange rate policy changes to come," Angus Downie, head of economic research at Ecobank said.
    In a similar move in April, the central bank limited the amount commercial bank customers can spend using their debits cards abroad.
   One trader at a major commercial bank told Reuters that pent-up demand for dollars in Nigeria was about $4 billion.
    "The decision to in effect introduce additional capital controls does not bode well in relation to investor perception and may also adversely affect domestic business operations and costs," Cobus de Hart of South Africa's NKC Africa Economics said.

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Power crisis poses biggest risk to S.Africa growth -IMF

South Africa's power supply crisis poses the biggest obstacle to growth, while state support to ailing utility Eskom and increased public sector wages may weigh on public finances, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.
The global lending body singled out delays in easing electricity shortages, and to policy and regulatory uncertainties, as chief constraints to economic growth in Africa’s most developed economy.
"As the electricity crisis has deepened, only a muted recovery to 2 percent growth is expected in 2015-16," the IMF said in a report.
Treasury said government was addressing the electricity constraints by investing in power infrastructure, in a statement responding to the IMF's report.
The IMF praised the Treasury's efforts to narrow deficits, but also voiced concerns about the government's ability to reign in state expenditure in the face of escalating funding requirements by Eskom.
"Substantial fiscal risks stem from further support to Eskom," the body said. "And the envisaged nuclear power plants could entail a large public debt increase."
Government's financial package for Eskom includes a 23 billion rand injection to help the utility plug a funding gap of around 200 billion rand.
Eskom, battling strikes, technical delays and cost overruns to complete three power plants expected to add over 9,000MW to the grid, said early in June that a 60 billion rand loan from the state would be converted into equity, in order to fund projects by boosting its lending profile.
South Africa aims to build six new nuclear power plants by 2030 at an estimated cost of between 400 billion rand to 1 trillion rand ($33 billion to $82 billion).
On Tuesday, the energy regulator held s public hearing to consider the latest application by Eskom to hike tariffs by 9.5 percent.

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IATA chief urges African governments to cut fuel tax, open skies

African governments must remove taxes on aviation fuel to create jobs, help carriers grow and make air travel more affordable, the chief executive of the industry's worldwide trade body said on Tuesday.
Tony Tyler, of the International Air Transport Association (IATA), said governments should also speed up a plan, known as the Yamoussoukro Decision, to open their airspace to local carriers by 2017. The plan was signed in 1999 by 44 states.
"At the moment Africa punches below its weight in terms of connectivity with the rest of the world through African airlines," he said on the sidelines of an aviation conference in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi.
When implemented, Yamoussoukro could create 155,000 jobs and fly five million extra passengers a year around Africa, a recent IATA study of potential benefits in 12 major nations found, Tyler said.
He said the cost of fuel, which comprises nearly 30 percent of an airline's costs, is more than 20 percent higher in Africa than elsewhere, and called on authorities to cancel aviation fuel taxes in line with the rest of the world.
"The opportunity here is for governments to cancel these unnecessary and penalising taxes," Tyler told a news conference, noting the benefits of increased air travel would outweigh the short-term loss of fuel tax revenue for states.
Mbuvi Ngunze, the chief executive of Kenya Airways, said the taxes varied from one country to another and that poor energy transport infrastructure also drove up costs.

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NLNG eyes $1.5 bln debut ship yard in Nigeria

Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company (NLNG) is sponsoring the construction of the first major ship yard in Africa's biggest economy at the cost of $1.5 billion, in its attempt to turn the country into a hub for maritime operations on the continent.

Nigeria is the world's eighth biggest crude producer and Africa's top oil exporter but it does not have a drydock for maintaining and repairing large crude vessels, a major drawback for carriers sailing to the country, NLNG spokesman Tony Okonedo told Reuters.

Only South Africa had such a facility on the continent, Okonedo said, meaning that ships travelled a long distance for repairs. Nigeria has two facilities that can only accommodate small vessels, he said.

Okonedo said Samsung Heavy Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries have both agreed a $30 million commitment towards the construction of the facility, which would be located in Badagry, near Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

"It could potentially be used to transport the 2.5 million barrel a day crude business in Nigeria," Okonedo said on the sidelines of a media briefing.

Okonedo said the NLNG organised a roadshow earlier this year to market the dry dock project to investors, which included multinational oil companies in Nigeria, with large exploration and upstream activities.

He said NLNG, which is owned by Nigeria's state-oil company NNPC, Royal Dutch Shell, French oil company Total and Italy's Eni was in discussions with a strategic investor for the project.

It appointed France's BNP Paribas and Guaranty Trust Bank to help raise around $1.6 billion two years ago to build six new LNG carrier ships, expanding its fleet to 30.

The construction of the dry dock, with a size that can accommodate 185 football fields, will take up to 48 months to complete and would commence once all the funding was in place, he said.

The company, which was set up over two decades ago, has a capacity to produce 22 million metric tonnes of liquefied gas a year. It obtains its gas supply from upstream oil companies and liquefies it for export.

It has long-term supply contracts with buyers in Italy, Spain, Turkey, Portugal and France and also sells on the spot market.

Revenues for the first half shed 25 percent, in line with the fall in crude prices, NLNG said. 

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Nigeria selects two sites for nuclear power plants

Nigeria selects two sites for nuclear power plants Nigeria has selected two sites for the construction of its planned nuclear power plants, as Africa's biggest economy tries to end decades of electricity blackouts that have blighted its growth. Russia's state-owned Rosatom, which has been in talks with Nigeria over the nuclear plants, on Friday confirmed two sites had been selected in Africa's most populous nation and said they would have a total of four reactors. Neither side would say where the sites were, but a source at Nigeria's nuclear agency said the sites will be in Akwa Ibom state, in southeast Nigeria, and Kogi state, in the central northern part of the country. Nigeria, with a population of around 170 million, has installed power capacity that fluctuates between around 6,000 MW to just over 7,000 MW, according to the Transmission Company of Nigeria, with 80 percent of its power plants fired by gas. By comparison, South Africa's capacity is almost seven times greater for a population less than a third as big. Africa's biggest economy has no experience in developing and operating nuclear plants but has small reactors producing around 30 KW for research, Franklin Erepamo Osaisai, chief executive of the Nigeria Atomic Energy Commission, said on its website. One nuclear power plant costs between $5 billion to $8 billion, a source at Rosatom said. Nigeria has not yet said how it plans to fund the construction, a key question given its finances have taken a hit after a slump in the price of oil, its main export.

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Nigerian interbank rates rise on bonds, Treasury bills auction

Nigeria's interbank lending rate climbed to an average of 15 percent on Friday from 8.25 percent last week as cash flowed out of the banking system to settle bonds and treasury-bill purchases.
The central bank sold a total of 235.49 billion Nigerian naira worth in both treasury bills and bonds this week, draining the system of liquidity and pushed up the cost of borrowing among commercial lenders.
Traders said interbank rates initially rose to about 20 percent because of tight liquidity, but fell when the central bank refunded 27.7 billion naira in excess amounts it had charged to enforce a cash reserve requirement.
Nigerian banks are required to deposit 31 percent of their customer's deposits with the central bank on zero interest as part of measures to curb excess liquidity in the banking system.
"We expect rates to inch up again next week on further reduction in market liquidity unless portion of budget allocations to government agencies is injected into the system," one trader said.
Market liquidity opened with a cash balance of 153 billion naira on Friday, traders said, but was expected to decline to around 50 billion naira on Monday because of debit for bonds purchase.
Both the secured open buy back (OBB) and overnight placement closed at 15 percent on Friday. OBB was 8 percent, compared with the benchmark rate of 13 percent. Overnight placement was at 8.5 percent last week.

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Nigerian bonds to take cue from meeting on forex controls

 Nigeria's debt market will take its cue from a meeting to discuss controls in the foreign exchange market. According to dealers, the debt market is expected to take its cue from the outcome of a meeting on Friday called by the central bank to discuss foreign exchange controls with banking executives.
Traders said the meeting may come up with ways of relaxing the controls to boost liquidity in the foreign exchange market, driving up demand for Nigerian debt.
The central bank imposed the controls in February to curb speculation in the naira and save its dwindling foreign reserves. But they have slowed the participation of offshore investors in the bond market.
"We hope the forex market will be opened up at the end of the meeting today (Friday) to further encourage more offshore participation in the bond market," one dealer said.
JP Morgan has threatened to eject Nigeria from its Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) by the end of the year unless it restores liquidity to currency markets in a way that allows foreign investors tracking the benchmark to conduct transactions with minimal hurdles.
They removal of the controls could spur fresh interest in the debt market and a fall in yields across the curve.
The yield on the benchmark debt maturing in 2024 fell to 13.82 percent on Friday, from 13.95 percent a week ago.

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Nigeria raises 144 bln naira in Treasury bills; yields mixed

Nigeria raised 143.64 billion naira ($723 million) in Treasury bills with mixed yields, the central bank said on Thursday.
Total bids for the notes stood at 275.30 billion, up from 253.82 billion naira at the last auction on June 3, it said.
The bank said it sold 26.30 billion naira worth of 3-month bills at 10 percent, up from 9.79 percent at the previous sale. It sold 25 billion naira worth of the six-month paper at 12.7 percent, unchanged from the last auction.
The bank said it sold 92.34 billion naira worth of the one-year note at 12.80 percent, down from 12.99 percent.

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German firm Bilfinger divest from Julius Berger Nigeria

German engineering services firm will sell its 33.4 percent stake in Nigeria's construction firm Julius Berger before the end of June, the local unit said on Thursday.
The Nigerian construction firm said the proposed transaction will lead to the exit of Bilfinger's representative from its board but said this would not impact negatively its operations.
"The decision is based on Bilfinger's strategic realignment from a construction company to an engineering and services group in the last decade which saw Bilfinger SE divest totally from its construction activities," Julius Berger said in a statement.

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Nigeria cbank calls Friday meeting with banks on FX rules - banking sources

Nigeria's central bank has called a meeting with chief executives and treasurers of commercial lenders on Friday to discuss issues surrounding its policy on the foreign exchange market, multiple banking sources told Reuters.
The central bank imposed tight controls on the foreign exchange market in February to curb speculation on the naira and save its dwindling foreign reserves in Africa's biggest economy.
Before setting the restrictions, the central bank had been battling to prop up the naira after a sharp fall in the price of oil, Nigeria's main export, which triggered a sell-off in assets by foreign investors.
The central bank also fixed the rate at which banks can buy dollars from oil companies.
 Traders were upbeat on the outcome of the meeting which they claimed was long overdue to ease the tight control in the market and allow the local currency to find its real value.
 "We are anticipating that the meeting would naturally discuss the present market conditions and explore possibility of reviewing the tight control on the forex market," one senior treasurer told Reuters.  
 JPMorgan has threatened to eject Nigeria from its Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) by the year-end unless it restores liquidity to currency markets in a way that allows foreign investors tracking the benchmark to transact with minimal hurdles.
 Nigeria's central bank set its exchange rate peg at 198 to the dollar in February but has changed it to 196.90 naira against the dollar last week, with dealers saying the tweaking was not a reflection of the market.
 The restrictions included central bank plans to limit the amount commercial bank customers can spend using their debits cards while abroad in a crackdown on dollar demand to save its dwindling foreign reserves.

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Angola cbank says will not defend kwanza "at all costs"

Angola's central bank will not defend the kwanza "at all costs" and it does not expect abrupt movements in the currency despite lower oil prices sapping U.S. dollar supply, the central bank governor said.
"The first mission of the central bank is not to defend at all costs the Angolan national currency," Jose Pedro de Morais said in remarks made late on Tuesday to journalists.
Amilcar Silva, President of Angola´s Commercial Bank Association, told Reuters the economy was in the throes of an "exchange crisis" because of the foreign currency shortage.
Angola's central bank devalued the kwanza by about 6 percent against the dollar this month, a move analysts said was aimed at stimulating foreign currency inflows eroded by falling global oil prices
Angola is Africa's second-largest crude producer and President Jose Eduardo dos Santos asked China for a two-year moratorium on debt repayments, state media reported last week, to shore up public finances hit by the oil price slump.

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Nigeria's Stanbic IBTC to publish list of loan defaulters

Nigeria's Stanbic IBTC, the local unit of South Africa's Standard Bank, said on Wednesday it will publish the list of loan defaulters in line with a new directive by the central bank.
Stanbic IBTC would be among the first banks to publish such a list after the regulator ordered lenders in April to crack down on non-performing loans to forestall a repeat of a 2009 industry bailout that cost the government $4 billion.
The new plan requires banks to give bad debtors three months to square their accounts, following which they would be named in Nigerian media and barred from taking part in currency and government debt markets in Africa's biggest economy.
Stanbic said in a statement that in addition to publishing a list of defaulters by the end of August, it would also use legal and other means to recover non-performing loans.
While issuing its order, the central bank did not give an estimate of the level of non-performing loans held by banks.
In 2009, the central bank rescued several banks that had lent mainly to the oil and gas sector just before crude prices collapsed, triggering a near-collapse of eight commercial banks.

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Nigeria to raise 120.5 bln naira in Treasury bills next week

Nigeria plans to sell 120.52 billion naira ($606 million) of 3-month, 6-month and 1-year Treasury bills on June 24, the central bank said on Wednesday.
The bank said in a statement it would sell 31.19 billion naira worth of the 3-month paper, 39.33 billion naira of the 6-month bill and 50 billion naira in the 1-year debt next week, using the Dutch auction System.
At an auction later on Wednesday, the bank is offering 143.64 billion worth of Treasury bills of tenors ranging between 3-month and 1-year. In addition, a total of 80 billion naira worth of Treasury bonds with maturities between 5-year and 20-year are also on offer at the same auction.
The results of both auctions will be published the Thursday.

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Nigeria to issue Treasury bills worth 873 bln naira in Q3

Nigeria plans to borrow about 872.96 billion naira ($4.4 billion) in a new Treasury bills issue between June 18 to Sept. 3, the central bank said on Monday.
The bank said it will auction 215.12 billion naira worth of the 3-month paper, 238.5 billion in the 6-month debt and 419.34 billion worth in the 1-year paper.
The total debt proposed for the third quarter is 12.3 percent short of the 995.5 billion raised in the second quarter of the year, the data released by the bank showed.

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Unilever offers $216 mln to increase Nigerian unit stake

Unilever said it plans to raise its stake in its Nigerian unit to up to 75 percent in a 192.6 million euro ($216 million) offer to minority shareholders but would not de-list its subsidiary.  
    The household products maker, which already owns 50.1 percent of the Nigerian subsidiary, has had operations in Africa's biggest economy for close to a century and sees Nigeria as a long term investment, documents showed on Monday.
    Under the terms of the offer, parent firm Unilever plans to acquire 942 million ordinary shares at 45.50 naira each, which would reduce the Nigerian unit's free float and trading volumes.
    The parent firm valued the Nigeria subsidiary at around 172.14 billion naira ($865 million) and said it would fund the tender offer from its available cash reserves.
    Unilever said it had extended the offer to June 25, from June 10 to allow more shareholders participate, saying a fuel crisis in Nigeria since March disrupted postal services.  
    Unilever said it would not make any changes to the board of directors or management of its local unit after the offer.
    Shares in Lagos-listed Unilever - which has gained 25.7 percent so far this year - were flat at 45.05 naira.
    Citigroup Global Markets and Nigerian-based Chapel Hill Advisory Partners are acting as financial advisers to Unilever Overseas Holdings B.V.

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Ghana says expects 161 mln euros in EU funds soon

Ghana expects to receive 161 million euros ($180 million) from the European Union (EU) "within weeks" to support the government's 2015 budget, Deputy Finance Minister Cassiel Ato Forson told Reuters on Friday.
The release of EU funds follows the signing of an aid deal in April between the West African country and the International Monetary Fund aimed at stabilising the country's economy in the face of a range of fiscal problems including a falling currency.
"The EU have been following our progress and they have resumed their support for the budget. We are receiving 161 millions from the Union within weeks," Forson said.
He was speaking ahead of a meeting between President John Mahama and Ghana-based ambassadors of EU member states.
The EU froze funds it pledged to Ghana's budget in 2013 after government overshot budgeted spending by nearly 100 percent.
Forson said some of Ghana's European development partners had also begun releasing frozen funds individually.
"Some of the monies are already on their way to the Bank of Ghana," he said.

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Nigerian bond yields still rising

Yields on Nigerian debt are seen up marginally at a Treasury bond auction next Wednesday, reflecting the prevailing returns on the secondary market, with investors expected to buy more of the five-year paper at the auction.
Nigeria plans to raise 80 billion naira ($402 million) in bonds with maturities ranging between 5-year and 20-year.
Traders said however that many investors were unwilling to take long positions in the market until new President Muhammadu Buhari unveils his economic policy, which could curtail demand and force the debt office to raise yields at the auction.
"We have seen some sell-off at the secondary market by some investors who are eyeing the auction," one dealer said, adding that the demand may still not be enough to push yields lower.
Yields have generally been rising this week because of selling pressure from investors and commercial lenders to meet other financial obligations, another dealer said.
The benchmark debt maturing in 2024 inched up to 13.95 percent on Friday from 13.88 percent a week ago.
The yield on the 2022 paper also rose to 13.96 percent compared with 13.86 percent, while the 2016 note inched up slightly to 13.96 percent against 13.80 percent.

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World's first penis transplant patient to father a child

A young South African man who had the world's first successful penis transplant last December has impregnated his girlfriend, the doctor who led the surgery said on Friday.
The 22-year-old man, who has not been named, is among around 250 South Africans who lose their penises each year in botched traditional circumcisions.
The nine-hour transplant operation formed part of a pilot study by Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town and the University of Stellenbosch. The patient was sexually active five weeks later.
"To us it means we are ticking most of the boxes where this guy can stand and urinate normally, can have sexual intercourse and his penis function has recovered completely," Andre van der Merwe, who led the surgical team, told Reuters.
"Now to have children is the last thing we wanted."
He said that independent pregnancy or paternity tests have not been done to verify it was indeed the patient's child but he had no reason to disbelieve the young man, who was employed and lived in Cape Town.
"I know that he can ejaculate normally and there is no reason for him to be infertile. I was expecting a pregnancy at some stage, even though I didn’t expect it this early," he said.
Each year, hundreds of young South African men, mainly from the Xhosa tribe, lose their penises after coming-of-age rituals go wrong. It is hoped Van der Merwe's pioneering surgery will help them overcome the physical and psychological trauma.
Announcing the successful transplant in March, Van der Merwe's team said the procedure could eventually be offered to men who have lost their penis to cancer or as a last resort for severe erectile dysfunction.
Van der Merwe has received requests for penis transplants from as far afield as the United States, Colombia and Russia.
"I do believe we will transplant again before the end of the year," he said.

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S.Africa cbank: monetary stance to change as inflation rises

The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) could change its monetary stance because of rising risks to the inflation outlook and a likely rate hike in the U.S. by year-end, its deputy governor said on Friday.
The SARB has kept its benchmark repo rate steady in Africa's most advanced economy at 5.75 percent since July last year.
The bank has however signalled since its last monetary policy meeting in May that rising oil prices, above inflation wage settlements and a weaker rand currency could stoke inflation and bring a rate rise in coming months.
Deputy Governor Daniel Mminele told a monetary policy conference in Johannesburg that domestic factors, mainly electricity tariff hikes of around 20 percent due later in the year, would compound upside risks to inflation.
"Inflation risks have increased, which suggests an unchanged monetary policy stance cannot be maintained indefinitely," Mminele said.
"We at the SARB are mindful of our mandate and committed to achieving our inflation target in the interest of balancing the systemic growth constraints," Mminele said.
At its monetary policy meeting in May the central bank said it expected headline inflation to breach the upper band of its target of 6 percent in Q1 of 2016.
Headline consumer prices, currently at 4.5 percent, have risen in the past two months having dipped below 4 percent in March on the back of the sharp fall in global oil prices.

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Nigeria's central bank tweaks naira peg again

Nigeria's central bank adjusted its exchange rate peg on Thursday to 196.90 naira against the dollar from the 196.95 set last week, data on the bank's website showed.
Dealers said the central bank had sold dollars to the interbank market at the new rate the previous day, dismissing the move as a currency appreciation as it wasn't market driven, but noted it could signal the coming of a new policy.
The naira opened trade on thin volumes at 198.90 to the dollar on the interbank market. It traded at 220 naira on the black market on Thursday.
"This is not a real appreciation .... the central bank is probably trying to guide the market. Its most likely an indication to a new policy change in the FX market," one commercial bank treasurer said.
The central bank made a tiny adjustment to the exchange rate peg last week, with one analyst saying the move may indicate that the bank is beginning to think about how to loosen its currency regime.
Another dealer said the central bank may be trying to guage the level at which it can defend the naira, but noted that the bank was running low on ammunition to do this.
Last week JPMorgan said it may eject Nigeria from its Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) by the year-end unless Africa's biggest economy restored liquidity to currency markets in a way that allowed foreign investors tracking the benchmark to transact with minimal hurdles.
Nigeria's foreign reserves fell to $29.18 billion by June 9, down 1.65 percent from last month, as the central bank burned cash to defend the local currency.

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Oil demand rises after price drop, but supply strong-IEA

• IEA raises 2015 demand growth forecast by 280,000 bpd
• Sees demand growth slowing in second half of 2015
• IEA sees higher 2015 demand growth than OPEC, U.S. govt
• Sees OPEC output staying high, lifts non-OPEC supply view
• For table on oil demand/supply, click here: 

 World oil demand will rise much more than expected this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on Thursday, in the latest sign that the collapse in oil prices is helping to boost fuel use.
The Paris-based agency also pointed to "exceptionally high" growth in global supplies, forecasting OPEC crude production would remain near May's multi-year high and boosting its projection of supplies this year from other producers.
In a monthly report, the IEA raised its forecast for global oil demand growth in 2015 by 280,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 1.40 million bpd, bringing demand this year to almost 94 million bpd.
"Recent oil market strength of course partly stems from unexpectedly strong global oil demand growth," said the IEA, which advises industrialised nations on energy policy.
Oil prices have recovered this year after hitting a near six-year low close to $45 a barrel in January. Prices collapsed from $115 in June 2014 in a decline that deepened after OPEC refused to prop them up and chose instead to defend market share.
The IEA's upward revision makes it the most bullish on 2015 oil demand growth of the three government forecasters closely watched by the oil market. The two others - OPEC and the U.S. government's Energy Information Administration - issued reports earlier this week.
Oil initially rose after the release of the IEA report and later slipped. By 0909 GMT on Thursday, benchmark Brent crude was trading at $65.16 a barrel, down 54 cents.
As well as lower prices, economic recovery and a relatively cold winter helped lift demand in the first half of the year, the IEA said. The supportive impact of these factors could wane in the rest of 2015.
"Recent months have seen a steady acceleration in global oil demand growth, but due to the temporary nature of many of the factors that contributed to the upside, annual growth may subside in the second half of 2015."

SUPPLY STRONG TOO
The IEA also pointed to strong supply. Production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose to 31.33 million bpd in May, its highest since August 2012, and is likely to stay high in coming months, the agency said.
"Barring unforeseen outages, OPEC is likely to keep pumping at around 31 million bpd during the coming months as Middle East producers sustain higher rates to preserve market share and meet summer domestic demand," the agency said.
OPEC, meeting last week for the first time since its landmark decision in November not to prop up prices, kept its output policy unchanged for the second half of the year.
This year's oil-price jump has been partly driven by signs that lower prices will slow growth in U.S. shale oil and other production with relatively high costs, such as a drop in the number of U.S. drilling rigs operating.
But the IEA does not expect that process to happen overnight. The agency raised its forecast of supply growth from non-OPEC producers this year by 195,000 bpd to 1 million bpd, citing an upward revision to U.S. data and fewer summer maintenance shutdowns in other regions.
"Lower oil prices and a drop in capital spending are taking time to curb non-OPEC supply," the report said.
"Despite signs of a slowdown in non-OPEC supply, notably in the U.S., global production growth remains exceptionally high."
With forecasts of demand and non-OPEC supply both being increased, the IEA said the market would require 29.4 million bpd of crude from OPEC and inventories this year, up 100,000 bpd from the previous estimate.

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Ecobank names Citigroup executive Ayeyemi as new CEO

Pan-African bank Ecobank Transnational Incorporated has named Ade Ayeyemi as its new group chief executive, it said on Monday.
The 52-year-old, currently head of Citigroup's sub-Saharan Africa division, will replace Ecobank CEO Albert Essien who is retiring at the end of June after a tenure that began in March 2014 when the board fired his predecessor Thierry Tanoh.
Ayeyemi, who is Nigerian, will lead a bank headquartered in Togo that has operations in 36 African countries and with assets of $22.5 billion at the end of 2013, according to the bank's website.
South Africa's Nedbank acquired a 20-percent stake in Ecobank last year and Qatar National Bank (QNB) also holds a similar stake in the company.
"We are delighted to have secured Ade as the person to lead Ecobank through the next phase of its development and beyond as a world-class pan-African bank," Ecobank group Chairman Emmanuel Ikazoboh said.
Ecobank's board fired Tanoh after a crisis over governance that led to divisions within the bank's leadership. Tanoh has since won a judgement in a court in Togo against the bank for wrongful dismissal and a separate one in Ivory Coast for defamation. Ecobank has appealed both decisions.

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Ethiopia eyes extra 12,000 MW in power projects by 2020

Ethiopia plans to launch hydropower dams and other renewable energy projects over the five years to 2020 that will add an additional 12,000 megawatts of electricity upon completion, a senior official said on Monday.
With one of the continent's fastest-growing economies, Ethiopia wants to become a manufacturing hub and Africa's top energy exporter by tapping the numerous rivers that cascade through its highlands. Experts say the Horn of Africa nation has the potential to generate 45,000 megawatts of hydropower.
Under a 2010-2015 development blueprint, the Growth and Transformation Plan 1 (GTP 1), Ethiopia started work on the $4.1 billion Grand Renaissance Dam and planned to complete the $1.8 billion Gilgel Gibe 3. Together the dams will boost generating capacity from 2,400 megawatts now to more than 10,000 megawatts upon completion.
Under a new 2015-2020 plan, or GTP 2, that is due to be endorsed by parliament in September, projects generating 12,000 megawatts will be added, Azeb Asnake, Chief Executive of state-run Ethiopian Electric Power, told Reuters.
"For this ambitious plan, the idea is to finance at least 50 percent by our own coffers, by the Ethiopian government, and the rest from different sources," she said of the projects slated to be launched by 2020.
Ethiopia's total energy plans could cost the country up to $25 billion, Azeb said.
"They could be grants, soft loans and commercial loans from foreign banks, governments and the like," she said.
POWER EXPORTS
Mega dams supplying up to 2,000 megawatts each set up on several main rivers and tributaries including the Omo and the Nile are part of the plan, according to official documents obtained by Reuters.
Solar, wind and geothermal projects are also planned.
Ethiopia said in 2011 it planned to launch projects to raise generating capacity to 20,000 megawatts by 2020. GTP 1 and GTP 2 will put the country slightly ahead of that target, once the projects are completed.
The government says its priority is to satisfy domestic needs but given demand still remains insignificant, a large amount of electricity produced will end up being exported.
Addis Ababa already sells a small amount of power to neighbours Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti. It has signed memorandums of understanding with South Sudan, Tanzania and Rwanda, while an underwater power link with Yemen is also in the pipeline.
Once Ethiopia's grand plans are complete, it wants to export power to countries in North and southern Africa and beyond.
"We have sufficient resources to power a very large part of Africa," Azeb said.
Other major African producers such as South Africa and Egypt boast generation capacity of about 42,000 MW and 34,000 MW, though their actual production is lower as many plants are old and need to be temporarily closed for maintenance.

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JPMorgan says may eject Nigeria from key bond index by year-end

• JPMorgan reviewing Nigeria bond status
• Nigeria accounts for 1.8 pct of emerging bond index
• Central bank tweaked FX market last week

- JPMorgan will eject Nigeria from its Government Bond Index (GBI-EM) by the year-end unless it restores liquidity to currency markets in a way that allows foreign investors tracking the benchmark to transact with minimal hurdles.
The bank said late on Friday it had extended the deadline to eject Africa's biggest economy by another six months to take into account the arrival of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Nigeria held closely-fought presidential elections in March, in which opposition leader Buhari defeated incumbent president Goodluck Jonathan, in the country's first transition of power through the ballot box.
JPMorgan, which runs the most commonly used emerging debt indexes, placed Nigeria on a negative index watch in January and then said it would assess its place on the index over a three to five months period.
"Nigeria's status in the GBI-EM series will be finalized in the coming months but no later than year-end," JPMorgan said.
Removal from the index would force funds tracking it to sell Nigerian bonds from their portfolios, potentially resulting in significant capital outflows. This in turn would raise borrowing costs for Africa's largest economy, already suffering from a sharp drop revenue following a plunged in oil prices.
Nigeria's forex and bond markets have come under pressure after the price of oil, Nigeria's main export, plunged. In response, the central bank fixed the exchange rate in February after devaluing the naira last year and tightened trading rules to curb speculation. The naira has lost 8.5 percent this year.
"If we are unable to verify these factors, a review of Nigeria's status within the benchmark for removal will be triggered," it said in report, adding that the factors included a liquid currency market.
Analysts did not expect JPMorgan to remove Nigeria.
JPMorgan added Nigeria to the widely followed index in 2012, when liquidity was improving, making it only the second African country after South Africa to be included. It added Nigeria's 2014, 2019, 2022 and 2024 bonds.
The bank said Nigeria continues to remain eligible for the GBI-EM index, which has around $210 billion in assets under management benchmarked to it, with a weight of 1.8 percent.
The central bank last week made a tiny adjustment to its exchange rate peg to the dollar, which one analyst said may indicate that it is beginning to think about how to loosen its currency regime. 

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Nigeria interbank lending flat at 8.25 pct on liquidity

Nigeria's interbank lending rate was flat at 8.25 percent on Friday, unchanged from a week ago, after the effect of a liquidity boost from maturing Treasury bills outweighed central bank cash withdrawals, dealers said.
The central bank withdrew about 39 billion naira ($196 million) from the banking system to meet a weekly cash reserve requirement and also sold 181.89 billion naira worth of open market (OMO) bills on Thursday to mop up liquidity.
However, the bank injected 161.9 billion naira to pay off matured open market (OMO) bills, into an interbank market which had a credit balance of over 200 billion naira, dealers said.
"The market is very liquid in spite of Thursday's cash outflows," one dealer told Reuters.
Though liquidity is expected to drop next week as state-owned oil firm NNPC, which sells its dollar oil proceeds to the banking system in exchange for naira, withdraws its deposit to the central bank, he added.
The secured open buy back was unchanged at 8 percent, compared with the benchmark rate of 13 percent, while the overnight placement was also flat 8.5 percent.

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South Africa's rand hits 13-1/2 year-low against dollar

South Africa's rand fell to a 13-1/2-year low against the dollar on Friday in nervous trade hours ahead of a Fitch credit rating review and a stronger dollar buoyed by strong U.S. jobs data.
The rand fell to a session low of 12.6600, its weakest since Dec. 2001, according to Thomson Reuters data.
It was trading at 12.6150/dollar by 1550 GMT, down 1.82 percent from Thursday's close.
Data showed that U.S. job growth accelerated sharply in May and wages picked up, signs of momentum in the economy that bolster prospects for an interest rate hike from the Federal Reserve in September.
"The U.S. jobs number came in considerably stronger-than-expected ... it brought back talk of the U.S. interest rate coming in much sooner so the rand was just a victim of that," said Bart Stemmet, an analyst at NKC African Economics.
The rand has also been under pressure this week as market participants await a Fitch credit rating review on South Africa.
Fitch, which is due to release its report towards evening, said in March it might downgrade its sovereign rating on South Africa in June, citing weak economic growth.
"A large portion of people think that we might get a bit downgraded later, I don't know how much of that is priced in already but it certainly will be a compounding factor," Stemmet said.
Fitch maintained its BBB rating for South Africa in December last year.

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Nigeria debt market in limbo

Trading in Nigeria's debt market will remain slow, with investors unwilling to take positions until new President Muhammadu Buhari unveils his economic policy.

"Everybody seems to be waiting for a clearer direction from the government in terms of composition of the economic team and exchange rates policy direction and concrete steps to restore confidence in the economy," one dealer said.

Nigeria’s central bank had imposed tight controls on the forex market since February in the wake of falling global oil prices and rapid depreciation of the local currency, impacting the offshore investors’ interest in the debt market.

"We hope to see renewed interest in the debt market as soon as the new government kick-starts its economic agenda with possible yields falling in tandem," a senior treasurer at an established commercial bank lender said.

Yields on the benchmark debt maturing in 2024 inched up to 13.88 percent on Friday from 13.83 percent last week.

The 2022 paper was trading with a yield of 13.86 percent, unchanged from last week, while the 2016 note inched up slightly to 13.80 percent against 13.78 percent.

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Bulb goes off above his head

It bothered Wilbur Milhouse when the power would suddenly go out as he sat in restaurants or hotels in Nigeria.
"Power outages are commonplace," said the founder and CEO of Milhouse Engineering and Construction. People are so used to them, he said, that they carry on conversations in the dark. So he decided to do something about it.
Milhouse's nearly 14-year-old Loop-based firm recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Nigeria and its Ministry of Power to create energy from coal.
The agreement, which is short of a formal contract, calls for mining high-quality coal on 20,000 acres in the country's Enugu region and processing it into usable energy to create a total of up to 500 megawatts of energy over the next three years.
The project, Milhouse hopes, will help bring an economic revolution in Nigeria. The country is plagued by political unrest, slowing economic growth and fuel shortages.
"The average Nigerian is used to having power that is equivalent to having one light bulb (in the U.S.)."
Most Nigerian citizens rely on electricity from generators powered by expensive diesel fuel. But Milhouse is aiming to chip away at the problem and make some money while doing it.
The agreement, he says, is the start of a long-term strategy to reduce Nigeria's reliance on expensive diesel fuel, which will improve the lives of its citizens and make the country ripe for investment. As part of the deal, the Nigerian government will buy electricity from Milhouse and distribute it through its electricity providers.
Milhouse doesn't expect to single-handedly solve the West African country's problems. Nigeria, with 173 million citizens living on land the size of Texas and Oklahoma combined, is battling a monthslong energy crisis, despite being Africa's largest oil producer with vast reserves of natural gas. About two-thirds of the population, or 100 million citizens, has no access to electricity, according to a study by the World Bank.
Generating power with diesel is costly to citizens and the Nigerian economy, the study said.
For example, the estimated energy bill for a 2,000-square-foot home using coal in the U.S. is about $300 per month. In Nigeria, using diesel fuel, it's about $1,200 per month.
In the U.S., about 45 percent of power is generated by coal. In Nigeria, a nation with large coal deposits, no power is generated by coal, Milhouse said.
So Milhouse, a civil engineer by training, has been traveling to Nigeria over the past year and a half to observe how they do business. He saw Nigeria as an untapped gold mine and figured he would start with what he knew: designing and building airport runways. When those ventures didn't pan out, he turned to energy.
Doing business in Nigeria is a huge leap for his business and its 125 people, who are more used to working on airport runways, water waste systems and roadways. But where some see great challenges and opt to walk away, Milhouse said he sees great opportunity.
"In Nigeria, they may have a project they need done, but not necessarily the funds to do it," he said, "so they look for investors to come in." Investing in power in a rapidly developing nation, he added, makes financial sense. That's why he has committed more than $1 million of his own money to get the project going.
Since the electricity grid infrastructure to provide power across the country is limited and unreliable, Milhouse plans to localize electricity production by using the mined coal to power 100 mini-power plants. These plants are smaller and cheaper to build and will supply energy where there is demand, generating up to 5 megawatts of power each. The project will cost more than $2 billion, Milhouse said. He's getting started with about $50 million from loans, private investors and personal funds.
In the next six months, Milhouse is aiming to begin mining coal and have at least five of his mini-plants under construction, he said.
"Nigeria's right at the cusp, they have a lot of needs and a lot of opportunities," he said.

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Kenya's KCB signs up 1.8 million mobile banking customers

• CFO says KCB M-Pesa on course for 10 mln users within a year
• Execs see mobile technology as future of banking in Kenya

 Kenya's biggest bank by assets, KCB, has signed up 1.8 million customers for its mobile phone-based service since it was launched in March and is on target for 10 million users within a year from now, its chief financial officer said.
Mobile technology is seen by executives as the future of banking in the east African country. Other companies such as Equity Bank  and Standard Chartered Kenya  have invested in systems to let users access accounts any time.
The KCB M-Pesa service, operated jointly with telecoms operator Safaricom , allows users to deposit cash and borrow up to 1 million shillings ($10,400) for a period of up to six months via mobile devices.
"KCB has been able to increase its retail footprint by opening over 1.8 million new accounts," Lawrence Kimathi, the newly appointed CFO said in an interview on Thursday.
KCB has lent more than 1.37 billion shillings to more than 400,000 borrowers on KCB M-Pesa, he said, adding the service was on course to hit a target of 10 million users within a year.
Chief Executive Joshua Oigara said in March he expected KCB M-Pesa to grow to account for 20-30 percent of its lending, although he did not give a timeframe.
Analysts say the bank has secured a swift take-up of its service by partnering with the existing M-Pesa service rather than setting up a system from scratch as others have, even if it means some earnings are shared. The financial details of the deal have not been disclosed.
Safaricom's M-Pesa, launched in Kenya in 2007 and aimed at people who did not have access to conventional banking and branch accounts, allows users to pay for goods, pay bills, make deposits and withdraw cash from authorised agents. Safaricom is 40 percent owned by Britain's Vodafone.
KCB, which also operates in Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, South Sudan and Burundi, serves 4.5 million customers through its traditional banking network. KCB M-Pesa is currently available only in Kenya.
Kimathi also said KCB planned to expand its traditional network into markets such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Djibouti and the Democratic Republic of Congo over the next five years. "There is quite a bit of business that Kenyans do in Somalia now," he said.

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OPEC poised to keep pumping even as global oil glut persists

Oil group OPEC is set on Friday to stick by its policy of unconstrained oil output for another six months, setting aside warnings of a second lurch lower in prices as some members such as Iran look to ramp up exports.
With no apparent dissent, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries will roll over its current output ceiling, renewing support for the shock market treatment it doled out late last year when Saudi Arabia, the world's top supplier, said it would no longer cut output to keep prices high.
With oil prices having rebounded by more than a third after hitting a six-year low of $45 a barrel in January, officials meeting in Vienna see little reason to tinker with a strategy that seems to have resurrected moribund growth in world oil consumption and put a damper on the U.S. shale boom.
"I am 100 percent comfortable with the oil market situation," Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi told the Saudi-owned al-Hayat newspaper. He told reporters on Friday that he was confident production from marginal fields outside of OPEC would fall even at current prices.
"The decision taken in November was the right one," said UAE Energy Minister Suhail bin Mohammed al-Mazroui. "It will take time for the markets to rebalance."
Nor is OPEC eager to tackle the tricky questions set to arise in the coming months as members such as Iran and Libya prepare to reopen the taps after years of diminished production.
Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Zanganeh will press the group for assurances that other members will give Tehran room to add as much as 1 million barrels per day (bpd) of supply once Western sanctions are eased, but seems unlikely to pick a fight now.
Just ahead of the meeting, Zanganeh told reporters that he was not pushing for a change in the output ceiling.
"When the production comes, this matter will settle itself," one OPEC delegate told Reuters. That may not occur until 2016, according to many analysts who question how quickly Tehran will win relief from sanctions and be allowed to sell more crude.
Libya, still afflicted by a crippling civil war, hopes to double production to some 1 million bpd by September if key ports resume working, but past efforts have failed to deliver a sustained recovery in shipments.
Brent crude futures slipped below $62 per barrel on Friday, nearing their lowest price in seven weeks, and U.S. oil is on track for its first weekly decline since March as traders anticipate a rollover decision and see weakening physical market conditions. But prices are still $15 off their lows, and some analysts see further gains ahead.
"The markets are moving in OPEC’s favour," said Dr. Gary Ross, executive chairman of PIRA Energy Group. "Prices are stimulating robust demand growth and slowing capex. This was the objective of the Saudi strategy and it’s working."
OPEC is set to convene its formal session by noon and a result is likely to be announced quickly thereafter.
DON'T RAISE THE ROOF
There also appeared little interest in adjusting the group's formal output ceiling of 30 million bpd to reflect the new reality. Output has exceeded that limit for most of the past year, reaching 31.2 million bpd in May, its highest in three years, according to a Reuters survey.
"If they raised the output ceiling then prices would go down and we don't want that," a Gulf OPEC delegate said.
Notably absent from this week's agenda are efforts to push for output constraints - even from hawks like Venezuela, which faces deepening budget woes at prices below $100 per barrel.
While oil ministers have maintained a relentlessly upbeat attitude this week, some analysts see dark clouds gathering.
The U.S. tight oil industry has been more resilient than many had expected, with falling costs helping sustain the revolution and possibly setting up another downward spiral.
"Balances show we are oversupplied and OPEC is in pedal-to-the-metal mode," said Bob McNally, founder and president of Washington-based consultancy The Rapidan Group. He said Brent crude could fall back to $50 a barrel.
In other business, OPEC appears set to grant Indonesia's request to rejoin the group after a more than six-year hiatus in its membership. Now a net importer of oil, Indonesia hopes to foster better dialogue between producers and consumers.

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Nigeria's central bank adjusts FX rate to 196.95 per dollar

Nigeria's central bank adjusted its exchange rate peg to 196.95 naira to the dollar from the 197 it set in February after the currency's value was eroded by the fall in oil prices, data on its website showed on Thursday.
The bank adjusted the rate at which it sold hard currency this week, dealers said, noting that the change was too small to be considered a revaluation for the naira, particularly in the face of dwindling foreign reserves.
Dealers told Reuters the central bank had been selling dollars to the interbank market at its adjusted rate.
The naira was trading at 198.95 to the dollar on the interbank market and between 215 to 218 in the parallel market.
"By lowering the central bank rate offered to banks albeit very moderately, the central bank is adding to pressures on FX reserves ... equivalent to around 4.9 months of imports," Angus Downie, head of research at Ecobank said.
Nigeria's foreign reserves fell to $29.4 billion by June 2, down 20.1 percent from a year ago as the central bank burns cash to defend the local currency.
The bank merged its bi-weekly currency auctions market with the interbank market in February and fixed the exchange rate, a move that amounted to a de facto devaluation of the currency of Africa's biggest economy.
The regulator had also banned commercial lenders from re-selling central bank dollars among themselves, which was an attempt to curb speculation on the naira.
The naira Non-Deliverable Forwards - currency derivatives traded offshore - pointed to the local currency being priced at 221-225 to the greenback in six month's time.
"Small changes in the rate could possibly allow the central bank to gauge the changes in demand and supply dynamics which would inform decisions on when and how best to start lifting forex restrictions," Cobus de Hart of South Africa's NKC Independent Economists aid.ters group of companies around the world.

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Nigeria raises 116 bln naira in Treasury bills, yields fall

Nigeria raised 115.85 billion naira ($582 million) in Treasury bills at lower yields across all tenors compared with a previous sale last month, the central bank said on Wednesday.
Total subscription for the notes stood at 253.82 billion naira at the auction, the bank said, compared with 243.39 billion naira at its May 20 auction.
The bank sold 17.85 billion naira worth of 3-month bill at 9.79 percent yield, down from 9.95 percent at the previous auction. It sold 18 billion naira worth of six month paper at 12.7 percent versus 12.75 percent at the last auction.
The bank sold 80 billion naira worth of the one-year note at 12.99 percent, compared with 13 percent last month.

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Mobile phone access in Africa set to double in next five years

640 million Africans to have a mobile by 2020
Data services still sparse but climbing fast
Governments urged to allocate spectrum quickly

Eighty percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s 800 million people should have access to mobile telephones by the end of the decade, double the current rate, although government help is needed to reach far-flung areas, industry body group GSMA said Wednesday.
The growth of mobile data - an even more powerful economic tool than simple voice services - also hinges on authorities allocating sufficient spectrum, said Mortimer Hope, the Africa director of GSMA.
"We expect data to keep growing dramatically, and to facilitate that you need more spectrum to handle that data growth," he told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum Africa in Cape Town.
To unleash the full potential of mobile Internet services, he said, governments should also consider cutting taxes on web-enabled handsets to make them more affordable to consumers on the poorest continent.
At the moment about 15 percent of Africans have access to the Internet via their mobile phones.
"It's very early days for data but we would like it be everywhere you have voice. The extra physical infrastructure deployment is not as big as you would think."
Mobile phones have been one of the factors behind Africa's recent growth spurt, by freeing people from the shackles of the continent's awful landline infrastructure and allowing them to communicate and transact at minimal personal and financial cost.
The simple SMS - and more recently mobile social media - have also become powerful political tools, used by grassroots political movements to mobilize support against oppressive states, such as happened in the north African 'Arab Spring'.
Governments across the continent are aware of the economic potential of mobile telephony but are sometimes slow to implement the legal frameworks needed to allow phone companies to expand, Mortimer said.
"Many governments across Africa have developed broadband plans. The issue is that those plans very often just sit on a shelf, not being implemented," he said.
Africa's biggest mobile phone company is Johannesburg-based MTN. Other major operators are South Africa's Vodacom and France's Orange.

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OPEC finds oil output consensus: "Don't rock the boat"

OPEC is set to carry on pumping oil nearly flat-out for months more, content that last year's shock market therapy has revived moribund demand and knocked back growing competition.
With oil prices having stabilised, for now, at around $65 a barrel, some $20 off their January lows, there's little appetite within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to modify production limits, as some analysts have suggested is an outside possibility.
"There is consensus among Gulf OPEC countries, and others, to keep the ceiling unchanged," a senior Gulf OPEC delegate told Reuters late on Tuesday after an informal meeting of the four core Gulf Arab OPEC members earlier in the day.
Iraqi oil minister Adel Abdel Mahdi said there was "optimism and general acceptance with the current situation".
The group meets on Friday following a two-day seminar featuring the chief executives of the world's biggest energy groups, including BP and Exxon , companies whose fortunes have been abruptly altered by OPEC's decision to abandon efforts aimed at sustaining oil prices at more than $100 a barrel in favour of defending market share.
"Nobody wants to rock the boat," the Gulf source said. "The meeting is expected to be smooth sailing."
OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said on Wednesday that it would likely be a brief meeting.
"Everything is very clear."
That marks a change in tone from OPEC's last meeting in November 2014, when Venezuela and others mounted an unsuccessful bid to convince Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies to tighten the taps on supply.
Instead, the kingdom laid out its new laissez faire approach, saying it will no longer consider cutting output without the cooperation of non-OPEC producers such as Russia.
This time calls for collaboration have been muted, and Moscow thus far disinterested, although OPEC took the opportunity to stress the importance of working together.
"It might be a big ask of some stakeholders who have grown used to going it alone — but such action would surely make all the difference to oil’s future welfare," the group said in an otherwise anodyne statement announcing the seminar.

The Gulf source said the outlook for the oil market is positive, especially in the second half of this year, which Qatar's oil minister Mohammed al-Sada said should be "more balanced".
"You can see that I'm not stressed, I'm happy," Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi said on Monday.
IRAN'S RETURN
There may still be some choppy moments. Iran is seeking to clear space for its gradual return to the oil market after years in which sanctions halved its oil exports to as little as 1 million barrels per day (bpd), an official said on Monday.
However, even if Iran and world powers meet a June 30 deadline for finalising a pact on gradually winding back nuclear-related sanctions, most analysts expect it will be months, if not a year or more, before Iran's production begins to recover, leaving OPEC little reason to sort it out now.
"Due to heightened uncertainty with an (Iran nuclear) deal, we think OPEC is likely to take a wait-and-see approach to the prospect of additional oil," analysts at Barclays wrote.
Some analysts, including those at Morgan Stanley, have raised the remote possibility that OPEC might surprise the market by increasing the output ceiling, now set at 30 million bpd. Some of OPEC's 12 members have dismissed that option.

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Ivory Coast rains promise strong finish to cocoa mid-crop

Abundant rains and sunny spells last week in Ivory Coast’s main cocoa growing regions could improve the mid-crop harvest, though too much rain risked causing disease farmers said on Monday.
The world's top cocoa producer is currently harvesting beans from its April-to-September mid-crop, and port arrivals are nearly on par with last year's record crop of around 1.74 million tonnes, according to exporters.
Farmers said that the supply of beans leaving plantations was picking up and they would begin preparing for next season's October-to-March harvest from July.
In the western region of Duekoue, farmers said they'd averaged at least two showers per week over the past month.
"There's intense harvesting now and there are lots of trucks delivering to the buyers and exporters," said Duekoue farmer and cooperative manager Amara Kone.
"The quality is good. We'll have more cocoa in August and September compared to now, because there are many cherelles (small pods) on the trees," he added.
In the western region of Soubre, in the heart of the cocoa belt, farmers reported three heavy showers during the week.
"If the rains are very abundant this month, disease could destroy the pods and reduce the harvest," said farmer Lazare Ake, who farms near Soubre. "The weather is starting to be overcast during the day. If we don't get enough sunshine, that could slow the development of the cherelles."
In the centre-western regions of Daloa, which produces a quarter of Ivory Coast's cocoa, farmers said two downpours mixed with sunny spells were continuing a trend of recent good weather following months of dry conditions earlier in the season.
"We've had a month of regular rainfall. We missed out on the mid-crop, but we are confident that the next main crop will be good," said Koffi Konan, who farms in the outskirts of Daloa.
Good growing conditions were also reported in the southern regions of Aboisso, Agboville and Divo and in the western region of Gagnoa.

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