Essar, which plans to have a refining capacity of one million barrels a day, is in talks to buy three European refineries from Royal Dutch Shell PLC. In July, Essar acquired a 50% stake in 80,000-barrel-a-day Mombasa- based Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd. from Shell, Chevron Corp. and BP PLC.
January 23rd, 2010:
Essar Oil hit by a steep fall in crude-oil prices
Nigeria’s oil industry in peril
LAGOS, Nigeria, Jan. 22 (UPI) — The power vacuum in Nigeria, one of Africa’s leading oil producers, caused by the two-month absence of ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua is putting the all-important oil industry in jeopardy by delaying reforms and threatening to re-ignite an insurgency in the oil-rich south.
Yar’Adua, who has a history of poor health, was flown to Saudi Arabia for hospitalization with a heart condition on Nov. 23, leaving no designated successor and plunging Africa’s most populous nation into constitutional confusion.