Newswatch (Lagos) May 5, 2003 Posted to the web May 5, 2003 Phillip Oladunjoye

Nigeria's dependence on aid as main revenue earner may be broken as exploitation of bitumen promises billions of naira in annual revenue

It is a big boost for the Nigerian economy. A large deposit of bitumen estimated at 42 billion barrels in Agbabu, Ode-Irele community in Ondo State currently being explored and exploited will fetch at least N155 billion annually.

C. O. Akubueze, an estate surveyor and valuer, said the local market alone in Nigeria is estimated at about N20 billion annually while it is also projected to pump into the economy N135 billion annually from its exportation, he said.

Oyewola Oworu, special technical adviser to the minister on solid mineral development, said the communities where bitumen was being explored would also benefit from the exploitation and exploration of the bitumen. According to him, the communities would have equity in the project, where the compensation due to the communities would be re-invested in the project. This investment, he said, would yield streams of income for the development of the communities. "There is a proposal on ground that the communities might have to invest in the exploitation of the bitumen. The proposal has been presented to the two firms authorised to mine bitumen in the country," he said.

The two firms authorised to mine bitumen in the country are Beecon Limited and Nisand Limited. The companies, however, have promised to employ 20,600 Nigerians before the end of July this year.

President Olusegun Obasanjo also promised to develop a seaport in Ondo State based on the success of the bitumen project. This, he said, would serve as motivation for the commencement of mineral mining in other parts of the country.

Modupe Adelaja, minister of solid minerals said the bitumen project would enhance industrialisation of the country. Newswatch gathered that commercial activities in major cities in Ondo State have improved as a result of the bitumen project. Rents in major towns like Akure, Ondo , Ore and Owo have gone up sharply in anticipation of the commercial exploration and exploitation of bitumen. A two-bedroom bungalow in the highbrow residential areas in the state capital now attract an annual rental income of at least N150,000, from between N30,000 and N40,000 it attracted some years back.

The state capital has witnessed an avalanche of banks with colourful edifice in recent time. In anticipation of increased commercial activities, Biola Olaseinde, chairman, Nigeria Institute of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, NIESV, Ondo State branch, said the state had already started feeling the impact of the project. "Akure and other cities are growing, so are our commercial and business activities. Both the federal and the state governments are providing infrastructure because of the bitumen project, and these will, no doubt, attract more foreign investment to the state. We are already feeling the effect of the project on residential and commercial properties," he said.

In spite of the benefits of the project in the state, the communities have expressed fear over the adverse impact the exploration might have on the people. A community leader in Ode-Aye, who pleaded anonymity, said the community was not opposed to the project but demanded that thorough environmental impact assessment survey be carried out so that the people would know the potential socio-economic losses that might follow the implementation of the project. "We are not opposed to this project which has a lot of potentials, for the country in terms of foreign exchange earnings as well as employment opportunities for our youths, but we are concerned about the safety of lives and properties and the future of the present generation of youths and those yet unborn," he said.

Adebayo Adefarati, governor of Ondo State , had recommended that adequate compensation be paid to those that would be affected in the exploitation. "There cannot be a peaceful exploration of bitumen without the payment of adequate compensation to those that will be affected," he said.

Akubueze opined that the individuals within the mineral-producing communities should be developed to avoid conflict between the communities and the companies carrying out the mining project. 'In mineral-producing areas, the emphasis is centred on the provision of infrastructure for economic growth only. But this should not be so. For sustainable development, the authorities concerned must foster the development of each human being. Failure to do this will generate conflict as experiences in oil-producing areas have shown," he explained.

But the Federal Government seems to have made provision in its new national policy on solid minerals to allay the fears of the communities where solid minerals are being mined. The policy provided for adequate preservation of the environment. It also analysed health and safety measures that must be followed in the mining industry.

The policy states in part that "issues connected with environments, health and safety form an integral part of development. It follows, therefore, that the environmental impact, health and safety measures need to be incorporated from the beginning in any development project.

Oworu affirmed that the ministry of solid minerals had embarked on a strategy which would be endorsed by all stakeholders in the mining industry to avoid the repeat of the Niger Delta experience where disagreement over cash compensation has always led to hostilities between the communities and the oil companies. Newswatch gathered that the bitumen deposit in Ondo State is the second largest deposit of bitumen in the world. Venezuela is said to be the largest producer of bitumen.

Bitumen was first discovered in Nigeria by the Germans in 1901. Nigeria has 42 billion barrels of bitumen resources which stretches over an expanse of land covering Ondo, Edo , Lagos and Ogun states.

Bitumen is said to have about 44 by-products that are vital for industrial production. The tar-sand, which is the major by-product of bitumen, is a main raw material for road construction. Bitumen can also be used to produce fuel, oil, asphalt, and insecticide.

President Olusegun Obasanjo had inaugurated the bitumen project implementation committee, August 28, 2000 , to look into the modalities of exploring the product in commercial quantities. The committee was headed by Julius Ihonvbere, a professor. The committee, however, prepared the groundwork within two years for the commissioning of the bitumen project. Obasanjo described the bitumen project a launch pad for the Federal Government's plan to diversify the economy.

azcentral.com-Chicago Tribune May. 5, 2003 07:50 AM

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - Faced with Iraq's return as a major oil producer, Saudi Arabian officials fear more pressure on prices - and on their already struggling economy. To some observers, such as Said al Sheik, chief economist in Jeddah for National Commercial Bank, Saudi Arabia cannot afford to sit back and wait to see how oil prices will play out. "The war has been positive for the economy," said al Sheik, referring to the run-up in oil prices, and increased oil output by Saudi Arabia. "But down the road, there are huge challenges," he said. Their worst fear is that Iraq will not only return to its pre-invasion production, but will go far beyond - to levels even higher than those reached before the first Gulf War more than a decade ago. Before the American-led invasion, the Iraqis were pumping out about 2.5 million barrels daily. But if cash-hungry Iraq wants to rebuild its economy in a hurry, it could press for a return to the 1990 level of 3.5 million barrels per day, oil industry experts say. It has the capacity to do so: Iraq's oil reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia. "If they want to prices to stay steady, (OPEC) will have to cut back on production, or on the other hand, they could pump up volume and accept lower prices," said Leonidas Drollas, chief economist for the Centre for Global Energy Studies in London. He agrees with other experts who predict the stiff competition for petroleum dollars in the coming years could lead "to the unraveling" of the 43-year-old oil cartel, which has managed to keep prices steady for the last few years. But that is not the official Saudi line. Saudi officials such as Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin Feisel have calmly put down such a dire possibility, saying OPEC has endured many crises over the years and survived intact. Still, Saudi officials do not discount the coming challenges their oil industry is likely to face. Saying it is almost impossible to accurately predict oil prices, Hamad Saud al Sayari, governor of the Saudi Monetary Authority, the Saudi equivalent to the Federal Reserve, conceded that he was "cautiously pessimistic" about the fate of oil prices in coming years. "Yes, the chances of some pressure on oil prices are high," added the U.S.-educated economist. The problem is, when the Iraqis rejoin the oil market in full production in a few years, a gush of oil is also expected from the Russians as well as from the Caspian region, possibly producing a price-reducing glut on the world oil market, industry experts say. "A lot of it depends on how the Iraqis view the market," said a Saudi oil company official. "If they want to see high oil prices, they will think twice before embarking on any actions that will bring down the house." "They'll be rational folks, and live like the rest of us," he added. Newly found oil money, largely because of Iraq's decreased oil output over the years, has been salvation for Saudi Arabia's troubled economy, which barely limped along in the 1990s. Since last November the Saudis have boosted their daily production from about 7 million barrels a day to more than 9 million barrels daily to make up for Iraq's production cutbacks as well as production problems in Venezuela and Nigeria, oil experts say. The higher oil prices and production hike have reportedly brought in million of dollars weekly. Likewise, after the first Gulf War in the early 1990s, the Saudis stepped up their production to make up for the cutbacks in the Iraqis' oil output. In both cases, the money has helped the Saudis deal with growing deficits and government expenditures. Saudi Arabia's economic problems, as he and other Saudi experts explain, are many. The country has not used its wealth to diversify, especially building a stronger industrial base, they say. Industries account for only six percent of Saudi Arabia's gross domestic product. The country has been slow to privatize businesses. And it has not updated its educational system to churn out workers needed for a competitive economy. In the meantime, it has one of the highest rates of income dependency. For every wage earner there are six who depend on the salary, according to a National Commercial Bank study. The global average is about two persons per wage earner, bank officials said. They also estimate the nation's unemployment rate at between 15 to 18 percent. Regularly updated figures are not available from the government. Debt, too, is increasing. Until now, Saudi Arabia has mostly borrowed locally to pay for its debt, according to al Sheik. The government's domestic debt is about $170 billion, according to news accounts. But al Sheik fears that Saudi Arabia will soon have to look outside for loans, forcing it to face the same kind of international pressures as Argentina and other countries that have ran into problems paying off their bills. Without major economic reforms, the future scenario is quite troublesome to economist Nahed Taher, also with the National Commercial Bank in Jeddah. Reduced oil prices combined with Saudi Arabia's internal economic woes could eventually drive Saudi Arabia's per capita further downward, she said. From a per capita income of $18,000 over 20 years ago, the number has dropped to about $7,500 today, she explained. And if a number of things go wrong for the Saudi economy, such as decline oil prices, the figure could plummet to about $3,000 by 2010, she predicted. That, incidentally, was the same amount for pre-war Iraq. "If we don't diversify our economy, this is likely. If we depend on oil revenues, and Iraq reaches 5 million barrels (per day) in five years, and the Russians and Caspians increase, then we are really in a dilemma," she said.

californiaaggie.com By Beth Walker Aggie News Writer

May 05, 2003 - What do a graduate student at The Domes, students at the Agrarian Effort Co-op and 100 households in Davis have in common? They all use solar panels to cut down on electricity use from fossil fuels. Tim Krupnik, a UC Davis graduate student who lives in The Domes — the fiberglass igloo-like dwellings on the west side of campus — spent about $400 for the batteries and inverter and installed some donated photovoltaic, or PV, panels on his roof. With the 170 watts it produces daily, he runs his lights, stereo and computer. The energy his stove and refrigerator consume comes from the utility company. “[The Domes] are obviously ecological dwellings,” Krupnik said. “I wanted to literally practice what I preach.” He said plans to build a solar-powered community structure are underway, so that all 28 residents in the 14 domes could share common resources instead of using more energy to power every dome’s kitchen. Krupnik is one of an increasing number of local residents pursuing solar power, spurred on by state-sponsored rebate programs and a desire to use cleaner energy. And, like the communal power systems planned for The Domes, solar energy can power more than one home. In summer 2002, solar panels were installed behind the Agrarian Effort Co-op on campus. During the summer months, they collect enough current to power the three co-ops and provide enough for one house during the winter. Solar power had been a project for the past eight years, according to Co-op resident Morgan Cisar, but was delayed by campus bureaucracy and building codes. The $26,800 price tag — $13,400 after state rebates — was funded entirely by the Co-op residents. “We tax ourselves,” said Cisar, a sophomore and activity director of ASUCD’s Project Compost. He said money from past rents accumulated in the Co-op’s bank account until residents could make the payment. Not only are people in alternative housing and co-ops choosing to use renewable energy, but more than 100 Davis residents have also installed solar paneling. Liz Merry and Bob Schneider, who live in the Village Homes development on Westernesse Road, obtained their 2.5-kilowatt photovoltaic system in November 2001. They spent $22,000 on the project; state rebates later brought the total to $14,500. Merry, a resident of Davis for 10 years, has been active in environmentally active groups, such as the Sierra Club and the Davis Energy Efficiency Project, for two decades. In 2001, motivated by the energy crisis and looking for ways to save money, Merry called around to find out about solar power options, but could not receive direct responses. “They didn’t have a three- or four-step answer,” she said. She said her frustration led her to research PV systems on the Internet for a month and a half until she understood the process and cost. Merry teamed with five other Davis homeowners interested in obtaining the technology but did not know where to start. So she organized the Davis Solar Group, at whose meetings PV neophytes could assist each other with paperwork and hiring an installer. “The people who are early adopters, anybody who buys photovoltaics [and] wind [energy],” she said. “It’s called early adopters in a business sense — those people really need to hang together and talk and make sure the technology is working well.” Talking with an alternative-energy user The California Aggie met with Merry and her husband, Bob Schneider, at her home to discuss her experience equipping her home with solar power. California Aggie: What factors led you to use alternative energy? Talking with an alternative-energy user The energy crisis got me interested in renewable energy….And then we had that workshop, the Energy Choices Workshop, and there’s a lot of people just like me that year who wanted to invest in PV and knew that’s what they were going to do and just needed their questions answered. So I organized us and we all installed PVs.

CA: So what exactly about the energy crisis prompted you to look into it? LM: That electricity prices were going up and that the state rebate program went up…which made it…relatively affordable. Other than that, people would have a hard time doing it.

CA: Your community here, Village Homes — is it a kind of ecological community? LM: It’s a very ecologically oriented community, with “community” as the big term. It’s a development of 225 houses, but we don’t have fences between our houses, at least not tall ones; we have a lot of communal areas. We share greenbelts on the front and back of our homes. Cars take a really secondary role in the community. We don’t have big garages all over the place.

CA: Have you been saving money on your energy bill? LM: Definitely. We’ve saved a lot of money. We use a lot of electricity…we’re not a typical PG&E customer or what you’d call conservation customer because that aquarium…takes a lot of pumping to keep the salt water where coral will be growing in it. So I actually use probably 1100 kilowatt-hours a month. An average home would probably use 700 to 900. I knew that we were going to get this reef tank when I started looking into PV…I wanted to make sure that [PV] was offsetting [the tank’s energy use]. PG&E sends you this huge statement every month. They treat all of the residential PV owners as mini-utilities, independent power producers…. We’re using about 1100 kilowatt-hours, but…we’re being charged for 560 kilowatt-hours….We’re producing more than half of what we use.…We would be paying about 26 cents a kilowatt-hour…the way the tiered rates go, but our PV system is producing all that so we don’t have to pay more than 11 cents a kilowatt-hour.

CA: How did you get the rebates? What was the process? LM: The first thing you do to get your rebate is to sign your contract with a PV installer. Get a copy of the contract that has the price and the warranty. The warranty has to be five years and then you submit that to California Energy Commission. They give you a reservation number. As long as you do just what you said you were going to do within nine months, they’ll give you this check when you do it. You install everything and you get the check at the end.

CA: Was it a real bureaucratic nightmare or was it easy? LM: I did it with this group of people, which we informally named the Davis Solar Group afterwards….We all learned together. So we had meetings at my house, did all the paperwork, actually used the same installer so he gave us a price break at that time because there were six of us all at once. That was a really good way to do it. Now we all share information on how our systems are doing and if there’s anything wrong.

CA: How does it work? LM: The sun hits the panels and the panels send direct current down these wires, and the direct current gets inverted to alternating current and the alternating current goes straight into the panel and the fish tank uses it. Today we produced 9 kilowatt-hours; right now we’re doing 324 watts, so that’s not very much. But total, we’ve done 5,471 kilowatt-hours since we started. To conceptualize, a kilowatt-hour is 1,000 watts over one hour, so like 10 100-watt light bulbs running for an hour. When it’s a really sunny, beautiful day [the electricity meter] will go backwards, and that’s a lot of fun. It’s feeding the grid instead of costing us money.

CA: Do other houses end up using some of this electricity? LM: It’s going into the PG&E utility grid. We’re all on the grid. It just feeds power back into the grid and goes wherever it’s being used. And this is a little [8-watt] panel. In the summertime the sun hits it and it powers a little fan [to cool the inverter].

CA: How much does the system generate? LM: There’s 2,880 watts up there. Through the panel inefficiency and the inefficiency of the inverter you get more like 2,200 watts on a really peak, perfect day. If it’s really clean I’ve seen it at 2,400….So that’s the kind of games renewable-power people go out and play…look at their meters and watch how much power their inverter is producing and call each other and say, “Wow, I did 18 kilowatt-hours today, oh boy.” Just know that’s power that’s not being produced by coal or nuclear or oil or even a dam you didn’t like…it’s a pretty good feeling.

CA: How long did it take to put it up? LM: About three days total. Once the equipment got here, we had a crane to put things on the roof. It’s a tile roof so that makes it more expensive than a regular roof. For a regular house [installation] would cost between $10,000 to $12,000 to put PV on for a regular size system…. It produces about twice as much; if it’s a 2,000 watt system it produces about 4,000 kilowatt-hours per year.

CA: Is there newer solar technology? LM: Solar, renewable energy is as new as you get. But how you collect it is certainly being developed. These are panels, and that’s almost old technology at this point. It’s film, except much thinner; it looks like an X-ray.…You see [new technology] on tiles. They’re blue and green and they look really, really pretty. And they’re PV panels, each little tile. Developers in California are adopting that. It’s called building integrated photovoltaics.

CA: So people are building it right into roofs? LM: Exactly. You can do your roof and your PV system at the same time. We don’t have very much of that around here because the developers bought all the equipment. But [panels] are the most economic thing to do.

CA: Why do you think Davis is so ecologically friendly? Bob Schneider: There were visionary people here early on…Because there’s a university here, and there used to be really activist students.

CA: Have you ever had problems with your PV system? LM: It did get dirty last summer. The production was about 10 percent lower than it should have been…so the guy who installed it came out and squeegeed it off.

CA: Why would you recommend this particular system or alternative forms of energy? LM: It’s a good thing to do for the planet. Because every watt that you’re not using and that you’re producing with renewable energy is one that doesn’t have to be developed in some other country or here in California. People in California don’t really have a sense that everything they consume affects Venezuela and Colombia and places really far away: Africa, India…we really are having an effect on other people’s environments.

CA: How long does it take to pay for PV? LM: There’s two ways to figure out the payback period. We paid for it in cash…It’s going to be taking us about 14 years to pay it back to the point where we’ve saved or not paid PG&E….A better way to finance your system…is when you’re doing a home loan or a mortgage and add $15,000 on a 30-year mortgage and pay $35 a month and be saving $70 a month….Over time you may have bought the system one and a half times…but cash flow-wise you’re actually paying less. I’d say it’s the difference between renting and owning your electricity. From PG&E, I rent it and use it, but I have to keep paying them….This way I own it and it’s always mine. Should we choose to conserve and just use how much it produces, it would all be free.

CA: Would you ever be able to power your whole house just by PV? LM: Yes. With this house we could do that. It’s a 2.5-kilowatt system. If we didn’t have the aquarium and we didn’t turn our heating and air system on, and didn’t have such a large Energy Star refrigerator.…There’s several things we could do….I’m very confident we could get to the point where it’s doing 90 percent of our electricity….I like solutions that involve common, easy things…put things on timers, use your software ability to put computer asleep at night….I like technology answers where we have them, at least. So PV is one of the easy technology answers.

URL May 6 2003

Governments across Latin America have launched investigations after revelations that a United States firm is obtaining personal data about millions of citizens in the region and selling it to the US Government.

Documents show that the company, ChoicePoint, received at least $US11 million ($17.4 million) last year in return for its data, which includes Mexico's entire list of voters and Colombia's citizen identification database.

ChoicePoint literature advertising its services to the Department of Justice includes the promise of a "national registry file of all adult Colombians, including date and place of birth, gender, parentage, physical description, marital status . . . passport number, and registered profession".

It is illegal under Colombian law for government agencies to disclose such information, except in response to a request for data on a named individual.

A lawyer following the investigations described Mexican officials as incensed, and experts said the revelations threatened to destroy fragile public trust in electoral institutions.

In Nicaragua, police raided two firms believed to have provided the data, and the Costa Rican Government has also begun an inquiry.

Other countries involved include Brazil, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Argentina and Venezuela.

ChoicePoint, based near Atlanta, is well known to observers of the Florida vote of 2000 that decided the US presidency in George Bush's favour.

The state hired its subsidiary Database Technologies to overhaul its electoral lists - and ended up wrongly disenfranchising thousands of voters, whose votes might have led to a different result.

Since the election and the September 11 terrorist attacks, ChoicePoint has been the beneficiary of a huge increase in the freedom government agencies have to gain access to personal data, through the USA Patriot Act.

Asked how the US Government was using the data, a spokesman for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs said it was helping to trace illegal immigrants but only if they were guilty of another crime.

Asked to confirm whether the data was used by his bureau only to pursue criminals, he said: "Mainly."

The Guardian

seafood.com

SEAFOOD.COM NEWS by Ken Coons - May 5, 2003 - The U.S. State Department has issued its annual certification that lists countries whose sea turtle protection programs have been found to be equivalent to that imposed on U.S. shrimpers.

According to an NFI report, Indonesia, Venezuela and Honduras are not among the certified, and Costa Rica just squeaked by.

U.S. importers can still bring in shrimp from non-certified nations if the individual shipment has been certified by a government official of the exporting country as being turtle-safe.

However for Venezuela and Honduras, only farmed shrimp or artisanally caught shrimp qualifies for this shipment-by-shipment exemption.

A State Department form (DS2031) is required to accompany all imports of shrimp.

Ken Coons Seafood.com News 1-781-861-1441 Email comments to John Sackton and Ken Coons