The Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) says as of 1 January 2023, the country’s oil and condensate reserves stood at 36.966 billion barrels. Gbenga Komolafe, the NUPRC Chief Executive, said at the sixth edition of the Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2023) that the associated gas reserves were at 102.32 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF), while Non-Associated Gas reserves was 106.51 TCF, making a total of 208.83 TCF of natural gas reserves. The oil and condensate reserves declined by about 0.22 percent compared to 1 January 2022 because of low exploration activities and reserve revisions arising from subsurface studies in 2022. Meanwhile, the slight increase of 0.10 percent in gas reserves was due to additional information from new wells and field development studies. In terms of reserves, Nigeria ranked second in Africa, eighth in the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and 11th in the world.
Bobby Moroe, South Africa’s Consul General in Lagos, says there are approximately 120 South African businesses in Nigeria, but in the past few years, there has been a slow withdrawal, particularly in retail. Conversely, he said there are fewer than 10 registered Nigerian companies in South Africa. Mr Moroe spoke on Tuesday at the South Africa-Nigeria Trade and Investment Roundtable as part of activities to mark the inaugural South Africa Week. He noted that one of the reasons for this development could be because of visas, which was a topical issue in his day-to-day discussions. He further said this was a commitment of his government to Nigerian businesses to make sure that with ease, the movement of people between Nigeria and South Africa was facilitated.
Ghana’s move to restructure its local currency and overseas debt has impacted negatively on the profitability of banks. According to reporting by Joy Business, almost all the banks that have published their statements recorded losses. Standard Chartered Bank, the biggest by market value, recorded a loss of ¢66.4 million in 2022, compared to a profit of ¢410.8 million in 2021. This is despite recording a staggering ¢807.7 million interest income in 2022. The tier-one bank made an impairment of ¢1.18 billion in 2022. Similarly, Republic Bank registered a loss of ¢66.8 million in 2022. It posted a net interest income of ¢370.6 million but a ¢237 million loss on financial assets and other costs triggered the loss. GCB Bank, the country’s largest lender by assets, lost ¢568 million in 2022, despite recording a net interest income of ¢2.09 billion. The parent companies of First National Bank, Stanbic, Zenith and Guaranty Trust Bank have already hinted at significant losses by their Ghana subsidiaries.
South Africa’s governing African National Congress will aim to repeal the country’s membership of the International Criminal Court (ICC), President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Tuesday. The party’s decision at a weekend meeting of its national executive committee came after the ICC issued an arrest warrant on 17 March against Russian President Vladimir Putin, accusing him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine. Only two days earlier, South Africa’s parliament announced that it would abandon a seven-year-long legislative process to pull South Africa out of the ICC’s Rome Statute. The process was abandoned because the governing party in December decided that South Africa should rather remain in the ICC and try to effect changes from within, a decision that has now been reversed. The international arrest warrant against Putin was issued after he had received an invite from South Africa to the BRICS summit in August, obliging Pretoria to hand him over to the ICC if he set foot in the country.