By Pap Saine and Lamin Jahateh

BANJUL (Reuters) – Gambia’s new government has told the United Nations it will remain in the International Criminal Court (ICC), state media reported on Monday, reversing the previous administration’s plan to withdraw from the tribunal.

Former president Yahya Jammeh announced in October that he would pull Gambia out of the ICC, accusing the world body of ignoring alleged war crimes of Western nations and seeking only to prosecute Africans.

But President Adama Barrow, who defeated Jammeh in a December election, pledged during the campaign to undo Jammeh’s decision, restore human rights and repair the country’s badly-damaged foreign relations.

“As a new government that has committed itself to the promotion of human rights … we reaffirm The Gambia’s commitment to the principles enshrined in the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court,” said a statement read on state television and radio.

The statement added that Gambia’s foreign minister notified U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of the decision in a letter last month.

The announcement constitutes a rare victory of late for the embattled tribunal. South Africa and Burundi also signaled last year they would quit the ICC and African Union member states earlier this month endorsed an unspecified “strategy of collective withdrawal”.

In another sign of Barrow’s intention to break with his predecessor, police opened their first investigations on Monday into unresolved deaths and disappearances under Jammeh.

Jammeh came to power in a coup in 1994 and his government established a reputation for torturing and killing opponents. He has denied these allegations.

The initial investigation ordered by Barrow will focus on at least 30 people whose family members reported them dead or missing, police inspector general Yankuba Sonko told reporters in the capital Banjul. The police also opened a complaint register so that additional people can file reports.

Jammeh fled to Equatorial Guinea last month under regional military pressure after refusing to accept his defeat to Barrow. Equatorial Guinea does not have an extradition treaty with Gambia.

(Writing by Aaron Ross; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

Read more

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South Africa’s automotive sector capital expenditure is projected to rise to 8.2 billion rand ($615 million) this year from 6.4 billion rand in 2016, the auto industry body said in a document seen by Reuters.

The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa said in a memo dated Feb. 7 that the sector’s estimated capex was based on details supplied by seven major car makers and data from various sources relevant to Beijing Automotive International Corporation.

Car manufacturers in South Africa include Ford, Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz SA, Nissan and Toyota, among others.

The automotive sector, South Africa’s largest manufacturing industry, expects a slight increase in new vehicles sales this year as economic growth gains pace thanks to commodity price rises and a recovery in farming.

($1 = 13.3433 rand)

(Reporting by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo; Editing by James Macharia)

Read more

ABUJA (Reuters) – Nigeria has recovered some $151 million and eight billion naira ($26.32 million) in stolen state funds in less than two months as part of an anti-graft drive, the government said on Sunday.

The West African nation launched late in December a whistleblower scheme entitling those who help find stolen assets to up to five percent of the recovered sums, part of a drive by President Muhammadu Buhari to root out endemic corruption.

Sunday’s announcement was the first since the middle of last year to give an official figure for recovered assets.

“The looted funds … were recovered from just three sources through whistleblowers who gave actionable information to the office of the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation,” the Information Ministry said in a statement.

“The biggest amount of $136,676,600.51 was recovered from an account in a commercial bank, where the money was kept under an apparently fake account name,” it added. The other recovered funds were in dollars or naira.

On Friday, Nigeria’s anti-corruption watchdog said it had seized $9.8 million in cash from the former head of the state oil company NNPC, a recovery also made possible under the whistleblower programme.

Graft, particularly in the oil sector on which Nigeria relies, has taken large sums from the country’s coffers.

Buhari rode to victory in 2015 on an anti-corruption platform after widespread anger at the plundering of the state under his predecessor Goodluck Jonathan.

But some have criticized the current administration’s efforts as ineffective and called it a witch hunt against Jonathan’s supporters.

($1 = 304.0000 naira)

(Reporting by Camillus Eboh and Felix Onuah; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Stephen Powell)

Read more

Privinvest just announced the delivery of “Sailing Yacht A”, “the most advanced sail-assisted superyacht ever built”, says the company. Measuring close to 143 meters (468ft) with a gross tonnage of nearly 12,600 GT, making the ship one of the greatest Passenger Yacht Code (PYC) superyachts in the world in terms of design and technology.

A ship designed by Philip Starck

“Sailing Yacht A” is a technical prowess boasting unique features such as an underwater observation pod, a hybrid diesel-electric propulsion system and state-of- the-art navigation systems. The three masts are the tallest and most highly loaded freestanding composite structures in the world. The mainmast towers 100 meters above the waterline.
Philippe Starck created the design, which aims to challenge the expectations of conventional aesthetics as he did for Motor Yacht A.

Iskandar Safa, Founder of the Privinvest Group, comments: “Sailing Yacht A” is a true revolution in the naval industry, she is the first of a new generation of ships embodying modernity, breaking both engineering and design boundaries”.

A major project carried out by Nobiskrug, a Privinvest Group subsidiary

Steel hull and steel superstructure with high-tech composite fashion plates that can be formed into any shape or size are key features of “Sailing Yacht A”. Nobiskrug, a luxury yacht builder,  has worked on the development of these technologies over the past 15 years, and was able to combine technological expertise with large facilities.

Privinvest, headquartered in the Middle East and founded by Iskandar Safa, has facilities and shipyards in a number of countries including France, Germany and the Middle East. Privinvest’s shipyards have delivered more than 2,000 vessels and its products are present in more than 40 navies around the world.

Read more

By Dmitry Zhdannikov

LONDON (Reuters) – Global oil output plunged in January as OPEC and non-OPEC producers curbed supply to accelerate a market rebalancing following one of the largest oil gluts in a generation, the International Energy Agency said on Friday.

Oil supplies fell by around 1.5 million barrels per day last month, including by 1 million bpd for OPEC, leading to record initial compliance of 90 percent with a six-month output-cut deal reached in December by big producers to boost prices.

“Some producers, notably Saudi Arabia, (are) appearing to cut by more than required. This first cut is certainly one of the deepest in the history of OPEC output cut initiatives,” the IEA, which advises industrial nations on energy policy, said.

The Paris-based IEA said if the January level of compliance were maintained, the output reductions combined with strong demand growth should help ease the record stocks overhang in the next six months by around 600,000 bpd.

Already in the fourth quarter of 2016, stocks in member countries of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development fell nearly 800,000 bpd, the largest drop in three years, the IEA said.

End-December inventories were below 3 billion barrels for the first time since December 2015, even though stocks continued to build in China and volumes of oil stored at sea increased.

“It should be remembered, though, that this stock draw is from a great height. At the end of the year they were still 286 million barrels above the five-year average level and by the end of H1 2017 they will remain significantly above average levels.”

DEMAND GROWTH

The IEA said it had raised estimates of global oil demand growth in 2017 by 100,000 bpd to 1.4 million bpd, citing recent improvements in industrial activity.

This will represent a fairly strong gain after growth of 1.6 million bpd in 2016.

Complicating the picture and slowing the market rebalancing is the rising output of producers outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

After falling by 0.8 million bpd last year, non-OPEC output will grow by 0.4 million bpd in 2017 with combined growth from Brazil, Canada and the United States amounting to as much as 750,000 bpd.

“Higher prices are fuelling increased investments in U.S. light tight oil activity and long lead-time projects are coming on stream in Brazil and Canada,” the IEA said.

“For U.S. light tight oil, recent increases in drilling activity suggest that production will recover and the IEA’s forecast is growth of 175,000 bpd for the year as a whole with production in December expected to be 520,000 bpd up on a year earlier,” the IEA said.

The IEA added that the continued existence of high stocks, plus caution from the markets in assessing the level of output cuts, were the reasons behind Brent crude oil prices remaining at the mid-$50s per barrel range since mid-December.

“The oil market is very much in a wait-and-see mode,” it said.

(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov; Editing by Dale Hudson)

Read more

By Ehab Farouk and Abdel Rahman Adel

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt (Reuters) – Egypt’s Alexandria Mineral Oils Co (AMOC) plans a secondary offering of 10-20 percent of its shares on the Cairo stock market and will also issue 10 percent as global depositary receipts in London, its chairman said.

The oil company first floated on the Cairo exchange in 2005 and around 20 percent of its shares are currently listed there.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s office said in January that Egypt plans to list shares in state-owned banks and other companies on the stock market as part of moves aimed at jump-starting investment and boosting the economy.

AMOC’s Chairman Amr Mostafa said the board would decide next week exactly how much of the company would be listed.

“I think AMOC will be the first company listed as part of the government listings programme. The listing will come out of the principal shareholder’s share or from more than one shareholder’s shares,” Mostafa said during an interview in his office in Alexandria this week.

AMOC’s biggest shareholder is state-run Alexandria Petroleum Co. with a 20 percent stake. Two other state oil companies each own 3.6 percent stakes and various banks and investment funds own 52 percent of the company.

Mostafa said he expects the share issues would be in the first half of 2017 and that the issue price would be the average stock price for the six months preceding the listing.

He also said that the company plans to make dividend payments of no less than 7-8 Egyptian pounds per share from 2016/17 profits, up from 5.5 pounds in 2015/16.

AMOC produces essential mineral oils, paraffin wax and its derivatives, naphtha and butane, and distributes and markets them in Egypt and abroad.

On Jan. 22 it announced a first-half net profit of 545.8 million Egyptian pounds ($30 million) up from 157 million a year earlier and Mostafa said he expected a similar profit in the second half.

The company is moving into oil refining and will start operations at its Midor refinery next month.

“We agreed with the (state-owned) Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation that we would start refining crude next month in Midor. We will start with around 350,000 barrels per month and the Corporation will buy the crude for us and we will sell the products back to them,” he said.

Mostafa said AMOC expects to make $2 per barrel and that it aims to make refining crude oil contribute around 12 percent of its annual profits.

Al-Ahly Capital, the investment banking arm of Egypt’s largest state-owned bank the National Bank of Egypt, will be responsible for promoting the London GDR issue.

($1 = 17.9500 Egyptian pounds)

($1 = 17.6000 Egyptian pounds)

(Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Read more

By Paul Carsten, Ulf Laessing and Chijioke Ohuocha

ABUJA/LAGOS (Reuters) – Nigeria wants to borrow at least $1 billion from the World Bank to help haul it out of recession and plans to present the required economic reform proposals to the lender this month, officials and diplomats told Reuters.

The oil producer, which has been hit hard by a sharp fall in crude prices since 2014, has been in talks with the Washington-based lender for a year to secure a loan to help plug a yawning budget deficit and fund badly needed infrastructure projects.

But the government has not specified how much money it was looking to borrow from the World Bank, saying only that it aimed to raise $5 billion abroad. It was previously also unclear when Nigeria planned to present its proposed reforms to the lender – which will not consider a loan before it reviews the plans to make the economy more resilient and attractive to investment.

The government now plans to present its economic reform proposals by the end of February, according to government officials and Western diplomats who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak publicly.

One senior government official said Nigeria would seek a loan of $1 billion from the World Bank, while a second senior official said it could seek as much as $2 billion.

The Nigerian finance ministry declined to comment on the size of the loan being sought or the timing of the submission of the reform proposals.

The World Bank also declined to comment on those matters. A spokeswoman said Nigeria’s economic proposals would be the “basis of which the World Bank will determine with the government the most appropriate lending instrument to support the implementation of the reform plan”.

It was unclear what the government’s economic reform programme would contain.

NEW ROADS

Nigeria, which relies on oil revenue for most of its income, is struggling to drag itself out of its first recession in 25 years. It needs money to help plug a budget deficit of 2.2 trillion naira ($7 billion) for 2016 and help fund a record budget of 7.3 trillion naira for 2017 aimed at stimulating the economy.

It had planned to apply for a World Bank loan last year but the process had ground to a halt because it failed to submit its economic recovery plans by the end of December as initially promised, sources told Reuters last month. [nL5N1F81XP]

The African Development Bank (AfDB), meanwhile, is holding back the second, $400 million, tranche of a $1 billion loan because it is also awaiting the reform plans.

Nigeria will present its economic proposals to the AfDB at the same time as the World Bank, according to the government officials.

A spokeswoman for the Abidjan-based AfDB declined to comment.

It is unclear why the government has not previously submitted its reform plans to the two international lenders. A funding deadlock could throw into doubt badly needed projects planned for this year, including new roads and improvements to power infrastructure.

The government is selling $1 billion of Eurobonds this week but this falls short of the $5 billion Nigeria said a year ago it wanted to borrow abroad including the World Bank.

‘CRITICAL REFORMS’

Nigeria’s government has butted heads with investors over the best course for the economy.

A reluctance by Nigerian authorities to apply a more flexible foreign exchange rate policy and other macroeconomic reforms to stimulate foreign investment has hampered talks to secure loans abroad.

The AfDB has criticised Nigeria’s central bank’s decision to curb access to hard currency, which has forced the closures of manufacturing plants unable to import raw materials.

The World Bank says it supports “critical reforms for restoring macroeconomic resilience”. Western diplomats say the bank wants to see how Nigeria plans to lower its dependence on oil revenues and boost investment, which has been hit by a high official exchange rate for the naira currency.

Nigeria’s central bank, backed by President Muhammadu Buhari, has kept the naira rate to the dollar at 40 percent above the unofficial – or parallel – market rate, which has dried up dollar supplies on official channels.

The policy has also made investors reluctant to commit new projects as they expect the central bank will have to devalue the naira eventually.

($1 = 315.0000 naira)

(Additional reporting by Felix Onuah, Oludare Mayowa and Joe Bavier; Writing by Ulf Laessing; Editing by Pravin Char)

Read more

By Ed Stoddard

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – The expected demise of transparency regulations for minerals and oil companies listed in the United States will not cloud the global drive for financial clarity in extractive industries, company executives told Reuters at an Africa mining conference.

Efforts to shine a light on payments such companies make to foreign governments are considered key to eliminating graft, conflict and the so-called resource curse – the distressingly common failure of less developed countries to translate mineral wealth into wide prosperity.

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, however, has begun dismantling such transparency requirements.

Republican-controlled Congress last week repealed one such rule and Trump also plans to issue a directive ordering suspension of another that requires companies to disclose whether their products contain “conflict minerals” from a war-torn part of Africa.

But companies with European Union and Canadian listings – or which work in countries that have signed up to the voluntary Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) – still have to abide by strict disclosure rules, executives say.

“Over half of our members would fall into this category,” the chief executive of the International Council on Mining and Metals (ICMM), which represents 23 leading mining companies, told Reuters.

Companies in this category include goliaths such as Rio Tinto and Anglo American, ICMM chief Tom Butler added.

‘SOCIAL LICENCE’

Butler was critical of the Trump administration’s actions, but said they would not derail the broader global push for increased transparency.

“It’s disappointing because overall the global trend is in the other direction. The train has left the station,” said Butler.

“It is driven by investors and other stakeholders and the desire of the industry to maintain its social licence to operate. One way to maintain that is for everyone to see that the taxes and other payments the mining industry makes are applied sensibly to the development of the country.”

Nick Holland, chief executive of South African bullion producer Gold Fields, which has a secondary U.S. listing, said that companies are not about to start altering their behaviour.

“We’re going the other way irrespective of the legislation. We’re not going to suddenly start doing deals with illegal miners to buy their gold,” he said.

That view is also supported by Vedanta Chief Executive Tom Albanese, who said that transparency builds trust.

“It allows for Vedanta to have a richer conversation with host governments around the world and makes the job of the chief executive easier in terms of engaging with host governments and stakeholders, which is one of the biggest challenges a mining CEO faces right now,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Barbara Lewis; Editing by James Macharia and David Goodman)

Read more

By Alexander Cornwell

DUBAI (Reuters) – Dana Gas will not make new investments in Egypt because of delays in obtaining payments owed to it there, the chief executive of the United Arab Emirates company said.

Political and economic turbulence in Egypt and Iraqi Kurdistan mean Dana has struggled to secure revenues in either country, once again hitting its profit on Thursday.

Dana posted a $7 million net profit in the three months to Dec. 31, versus $134 million in the same period of 2015 when it benefited from a one-off legal settlement. Shares in Dana fell 3.7 percent following the results.

The amount owed by Egypt was $265 million as of Dec. 31, up from $221 million at the end of 2015, Dana said. Unpaid receivables from the Kurdistan Regional Government were $713 million, down slightly from $727 million in 2015.

“As uncertainty remains we must therefore be rigorous in balancing any additional capital investment in Egypt with actual collections,” CEO Patrick Allman-Ward told reporters.

Dana will complete current Egyptian investments in critical health, safety, security and environmental areas and all of its up-and-running projects, but all non-critical projects have been paused since the start of the year, he said.

The Egyptian government has been seeking to draw foreign investors back to its energy sector to boost shaky public finances, but it has failed to meet self-imposed deadlines for paying back international oil companies.

Dana had thought that part of a $12 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund loan agreed with Egypt in November would be used for payments to the petroleum sector, but the money had been “used for other purposes”, Allman-Ward said.

He now hoped part of a combined $5.5 billion that Egypt has secured through an international bond issue and loans from the World Bank and African Development Bank would be used to meet outstanding petroleum debts.

Dana’s investment freeze would be reviewed once it had been paid by the Egyptian government, Allman-Ward said, adding that the company wanted to continue developing its assets there.

Production from Egypt in the fourth quarter rose to 40,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), up 31 percent on the year-ago period, Dana said, although it took a $20 million charge last year because of currency depreciation.

(Editing by Andrew Torchia and Alexander Smith)

Read more