Nigeria Petroleum Ministry Audit – Top manager forced to resign

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, has ordered the General Manager, Operations/Corporate Services, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency, PPPRA, Wole Adamolekun, to immediately proceed on retirement.

A copy of the letter conveying the minister’s directive, sighted by our reporter in Abuja, and signed by the agency’s Assistant General Manager/Head, Administration, Moses Mbaba, directed Mr. Adamolekun to quit latest December 31, 2013.

A ministerial personnel audit panel constituted early in 2013 to verify the service records of workers in five parastatals under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources reportedly indicted Mr. Adamolekun along with several other top oil industry management staff for allegedly falsifying their service records.

Brent crude trades near two-month low as Libya output recovers

Brent traded near its lowest closing level in two months following the first increase since March in oil supply from Libya, holder of Africa’s biggest reserves.

Futures were little changed in London after declining for the past two days. Libya tripled output to about 650,000 barrels a day in the three weeks to Jan. 13 after talks with protesters enabled the restart of Sharara, its second-biggest field, earlier this month, according to the government. West Texas Intermediate fluctuated amid speculation U.S. crude stockpiles declined for a seventh week.

“Investors have turned back to fairly comfortable long term fundamental prospects, partly because of a modest recovery in Libyan supplies recently,” said Andrey Kryuchenkov, an analyst at VTB Capital in London. “Today, market participants will pay close attention to the U.S. weekly fuel inventory numbers.”