The West Africa Gas Pipeline Company will resume gas flow through its pipeline on April 30, 2013. The company’s General Manager, Corporate Affairs, Harriet Wereko-Brobby, said this at the Lagos Beach Compressor Station in Badagry. The pipeline was damaged in August 2012 and this affected the company’s operations. WAGPCO is jointly owned by Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and Benin Republic. Mrs Wereko-Bobby said the damaged gas pipeline had been undergoing intensive repairs, including tests for leakages.
China's economy, the world's second-largest, has performed worse than many analysts expected in the first three months of the year. Growth hit an annual rate of 7.7% in the January to March quarter. Analysts had forecast a figure closer to 8%. China wants to spur growth after it hit a 13-year low in 2012 but it has been careful not to overheat the economy. Other key data today also came in lower than market expectations, raising questions over the outlook for growth. Industrial output rose 8.9% in March from a year earlier, much lower than analysts' targets of 10%.

The National Economic Council has approved disbursement of additional one billion dollars from the Excess Crude Account to the three tiers of government.  Akwa Ibom Governor Godwills Akpabio, who disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents on the outcome of the monthly NEC meeting in Abuja, said the amount would be disbursed in April. However, Governor Akpabio said the one billion dollars to be shared in April would facilitate the execution of various development projects by the different tiers of government in the country.

The rapid emergence of shale oil as a significant and relatively low cost
unconventional energy resource in the United States threatens to reduce
the influence of Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries of which
Nigeria is a member.
Global technically recoverable oil shale reserves have recently been
estimated at about 2.8 to 3.3 trillion barrels of shale oil, with the
largest reserves in the United States. Worldwide production of shale oil
was estimated at 11,600 barrels per day. According to accounting and
business advisory firm, PricewaterhouseCoopers, there is the potential for
shale oil production to spread globally over the next couple of decades,
which would revolutionize global energy markets, providing greater long
term energy security for many countries.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has urged the Indian government to
cut regulation and red tape in a bid to encourage more trade and
investment involving UK businesses.

Shoreline Natural Resources says it bought the 45 percent equity in the
oil mining lease (OML) 30 divested by Shell Petroleum Development Company
and not Heritage Oil as reported.
The declaration by Shoreline has ended the controversy over the true buyer
of the divested equity that was erroneously attributed to Heritage Oil.
The company said Heritage Oil did not buy any asset in Nigeria, adding
that it is the first time major international banks like JP Morgan,
Standard Bank and China Development Bank supported local company through
investment.

The Petroleum Products Marketing Company Limited says the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation lost a total of N190bn to pipeline vandals between 2011 and 2012.

Spokesman for PPMC, Nasir Imodagbe, disclosed this in a telephone interview with our correspondent in Abuja yesterday.

Details of the loss showed that while revenues lost to crude oil theft decreased substantially within the period, revenues lost to theft of refined products, however, increased substantially.

In 2011, pipeline vandalism for the theft of crude resulted in the loss of N90bn, while that for the theft of refined products resulted in the loss of N20bn in the same year.