Saturday, November 23African Digital Business Magazine

Tag: Nigeria

Energy, Nigeria News

Wärtsilä Optimised Maintenance agreement supports growth ambitions of a privately-owned Nigerian supplier of energy to the national grid

The technology group Wärtsilä has signed a long-term Optimised Maintenance agreement covering power plants in three locations owned by Paras Energy, a 100 percent privately-owned Nigerian energy provider. The aim of the agreement is to ensure the plants’ continued high levels of availability, reliability and efficiency, while providing important cost predictability for future budgeting purposes. The agreement was signed with Wärtsilä in the first quarter of 2021. The plants covered by the five-year agreement are operated with Wärtsilä 34SG gas-fuelled engines producing a combined total output of approximately 132 MW. Based on an average connected capacity of some 6,5 kW for each Nigerian home, this will represent the annual consumption equivalent of close to 20,300 domestic households. “We...
Nigeria News

The Central Bank Of Nigeria’s Naira For Dollar Scheme

By Ibrahim Moshood, Associate, Centurion Law Group The “Naira 4 Dollar” Policy With a considerable amount of its population in the diaspora[1], Nigeria is one of the top three African destinations receiving the largest inflow of foreign remittances at over USD 24 Billion in the last quarter of 2020.[2]  In an effort to sustain and encourage the inflow of these remittances, the Central Bank of Nigeria has introduced the “Naira 4 Dollar Scheme” on 5 March 2021. This scheme is scheduled to take effect from 8 March 2021 to 8 May 2021. Foreign remittances are quite important to the Nigerian economy, contributing over 83% to the National budgets between 2018 and 2019. [3] Recall that in November 2020, the CBN had issued a circular to authorized dealers and the public stating principally that, be...
Energy, Green Energy, Nigeria News

Without flexibility, Nigeria will face difficulties integrating large amounts of renewable energy into the grid

Op-ed by Wale Yusuff, Managing Director of  Wartsila Marine & Power Service Nig Ltd As the largest economy in Africa, with huge gas reserves and high solar energy potential, Nigeria has all the natural resources necessary to meet the growing demand for electricity. However, the inadequate energy infrastructure still leaves a significant part of the population without power or relying on oil-fired back-up generators. If Nigeria can improve its energy infrastructure and unlock its gas-to-power generation potential, it paves the way to integrating low-cost renewable energy, bringing electricity and development opportunities to rural villages, driving industrial growth and employment, and increasing prosperity across the country. There is no doubt that gas has an important role to play in ...
Nigeria News, Tech

erpSOFTapp Odoo; Nigeria joins the league of Gold Partners with V14 Certification

The integration of smart business applications is on the rise in Nigeria, especially in the last year due to the COVID 19 pandemic. One of such application is the Odoo business app. Formally known as Open ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), Odoo made its debut in Nigeria in 2015. Since then, the integration of the much sort after business app has grown exponentially with small, large and medium sized companies seeking the service of qualified Odoo professionals. Finding a fully certified Odoo professional locally was daunting. This changed in 2018 thanks to erpSOFTapp, a company based in Lagos, Nigeria which won the best partner Africa award in 2018 and 2019. erpSOFTapp, has joined the 11.9% certified V14 Odoo gold partners. Nigeria can now boast of being a part of the low 2.4% that have a...
Africa needs Pragmatic Free Market policies to attract capital into Gas markets
Energy

Africa needs Pragmatic Free Market policies to attract capital into Gas markets

Speaking at the International Petroleum (IP) Week on February 25, 2021, I commended Nigeria for its efforts in driving gas monetization, but we have to be clear that our industry and hardworking people remain frustrated by the delays and inability to pass and sign the Petroleum Industry Bill. There needs to be that fierce sense of urgency of now especially in the era of the energy transition. The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) needs to be passed as it allows energy companies to turn their attention to producing energy that drives our economies. It will allow politicians to focus on other pressing matters like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCTA) and security issues. Africa is well-placed to become a key global supplier of LNG. Mozambique, Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Senegal, and ...
Deal making slows across Africa but post-pandemic opportunities look interesting
Ethiopia News, Ghana News, Kenya News, Main, Mauritius News, Mozambique News, Nigeria News, South Africa News

Deal making slows across Africa but post-pandemic opportunities look interesting

Deal making activity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) dropped in the second half of 2020 (H2 2020), when compared to the second half of 2019 (H2 2019) and year-on-year, deals were also down in both volume and value compared to 2019. As the continent gears up for post-pandemic recovery in 2021, the opportunities presented by free trade across the continent, foreign investment opportunities due to new partnerships and trade relationships, as well as the post-pandemic focus on technology, healthcare and renewable energy, will be key factors in attracting valuable mergers and acquisition (M&A) activity to the region. Further, South Africa’s deal volume and value both dropped in 2020, with the industrials and healthcare sector attracting the biggest investments. Ghana stood out as a country that...
54gene unveils world-class scientific research laboratory in Lagos State, Nigeria
Medicine, Nigeria News, Science

54gene unveils world-class scientific research laboratory in Lagos State, Nigeria

54gene has unveiled its new lab in Lagos State, Nigeria, capable of human whole genome sequencing and a variety of other scientific investigations. Hosting a suite of world-class molecular genomics capabilities, including the Illumina Novaseq 6000 and NextSeq 550Dx the lab is part of 54gene’s mission to enable Africans to conduct genomics research and will be fully operational from January 2021. The new lab, recently inspected by the Commissioner of Health for Lagos State, Prof. Akin Abayomi, is geared to crucially expedite internal and external research projects designed to facilitate precision medicine for Africans and the global population. 54gene is currently conducting research to discover novel biological insights based on genetic modifiers, by deriving information from its unique a...
Ventures Platform Foundation launches applications for Gov Labs
Nigeria News, Startups

Ventures Platform Foundation launches applications for Gov Labs

VPF & National Endowment for Democracy call for tech solutions to protect Nigerians’ human rights during COVID-19 response Ventures Platform Foundation (VPF), the social impact arm of Ventures Platform Hub, has launched a call for applications for its latest incubation programme, Gov Labs - a 12-week programme for tech solutions implementing accountability and transparency within the Nigerian government’s COVID-19 response. Created with support from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the new initiative will support Civil Society Organizations from across Nigeria as they build innovative solutions promoting good governance and wide scale access to public services. From the pool of applicants, five organisations will be selected and will each receive a $2,500 grant as well as ac...
Commitment to sustainability opening doors to post-pandemic capital in Africa
Main, Nigeria News, South Africa News

Commitment to sustainability opening doors to post-pandemic capital in Africa

By Wildu du Plessis, Head of Africa, Baker McKenzie The industrials, manufacturing and transport (IMT) sector is being hit hard by COVID-19 disruption, but commitment to sustainability could very well lead the sector to recovery. This is according to Baker McKenzie’s report "Sustainable Success: Exploring environmental, social and governance priorities for industrials through COVID-19 and beyond" which revealed that industrials have taken great leaps forward in relation to environmental, social and governance matters (ESG) in the past decade.  The report outlines how CEOs in the sector have signed up to a new holistic definition of company purpose and most public companies now report on ESG goals. Access to funding is also becoming intricately linked to a commitment to ESG principles, with...
Forex, Nigeria News

Nigeria needs to start preparing for an oil-less economy

Nigeria is the second country in Africa with a big economy. Globally it is the 22nd country by the number of finances. With this flow of the growing economy, Nigeria can be in the top 10 countries in 2050. To achieve this kind of stability, this country needs to diversify its economy from its dependence on oil. Nigeria is a country that can really make a big difference in the world by using all the opportunities it has in different fields, so it goes without saying that Nigeria’s potential really lies beyond the oil. Based on recent trends, this country is starting to make a big difference in the trading field. To rely only on oil will be destructive for the country because the world is going far with new technologies and soon there will be renewable energy which can affect Nigeria’s econ...