ABUJA, June 18 (Reuters) – U.S.-based Chevron Corp
is selling five Nigerian shallow-water oil blocks, the company
said on Tuesday, the latest oil major seeking to dispose of
assets in Africa’s biggest producer.

Royal Dutch Shell, Italy’s Eni and
France’s Total have sold several Nigerian onshore
blocks in recent years, while U.S. firm ConocoPhillips
is selling its Nigerian businesses to Oando Energy for
about $1.79 billion.

WARRI, Nigeria, June 12 (Reuters) – After two days trapped
in freezing cold water and breathing from an air bubble in an
upturned tugboat under the ocean, Harrison Okene was sure he was
going to die. Then a torch light pierced the darkness.

Ship’s cook Okene, 29, was on board the Jascon-4 tugboat
when it capsized on May 26 due to heavy Atlantic ocean swells
around 30 km (20 miles) off the coast of Nigeria, while
stabilising an oil tanker filling up at a Chevron platform.

ABUJA, June 11 (Reuters) – U.S. energy firm Chevron
is selling its stake in two Nigerian shallow water oil blocks,
the company said on Tuesday, the latest oil major seeking to
dispose of assets in Africa’s biggest oil producer.

The two blocks OML 83 and OML 85 hold an estimated 200
million barrels of oil and an unknown amount of natural gas but
there has been no production yet, two industry sources told
Reuters. Chevron did not give details of reserves.

KIRENOWA, Nigeria (Reuters) – All that remains of the Islamist fighters who once bedded down in this sandy enclave are charred clothes, burned out trucks and surgical equipment left beneath a thorny tree.

Hausari Camp – 300 square meters of baking wilderness near Nigeria’s border with Chad – was until last month a base for militants from Boko Haram, whose four-year-old insurgency has left thousands dead and destabilized Africa’s top oil producer.

ABUJA, June 3 (Reuters) – Nigeria will privatise 10 more
state power plants by mid-2014, advisers to the government said
on Monday, as part of plans to overhaul the country’s feeble
electricity sector.

President Goodluck Jonathan pledged nearly three years ago
to privatise the bulk of Nigeria’s electricity sector, in an
effort to end chronic power shortages that are the biggest brake
on growth in Africa’s second largest economy.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nuradin Mohammed used to resent and fear the troops who swept past his fish stall in this northeast Nigerian city on the trail of Islamist insurgents Boko Haram. Now, for the first time, he thinks they may be on his side.

“We are pleased the president has finally recognized our peril and we pray his plan works,” Mohammed said, frying fish by the roadside as a crowd of young children looked on hungrily and trucks packed with troops rumbled past.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria, May 26 (Reuters) – Nuradin Mohammed used
to resent and fear the troops who swept past his fish stall in
this northeast Nigerian city on the trail of Islamist insurgents
Boko Haram. Now, for the first time, he thinks they may be on
his side.

“We are pleased the president has finally recognised our
peril and we pray his plan works,” Mohammed said, frying fish by
the roadside as a crowd of young children looked on hungrily and
trucks packed with troops rumbled past.

ABUJA/GENEVA, May 23 (Reuters) – Nigeria’s state-oil company
and a local unit of Exxon Mobil plan to tap the bond
market by 2016 to fill a funding shortfall in developing oil
exploration projects, the companies have said.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) owns at
least 50 percent in several joint ventures with oil majors such
as Royal Dutch Shell, Exxon and Chevron but
often fails to meet its share of project funding.

NIAMEY/MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (Reuters) – Nigeria has asked its northern neighbor Niger for help in an offensive against Boko Haram insurgents, as West African states try to cooperate against a spread of Islamist violence.

An intelligence source in Niger said on Tuesday security had been tightened along the thinly populated border and military police were searching vehicles for Boko Haram fighters who might be fleeing the past week’s onslaught on their bases in Nigeria.

MAIDUGURI (Reuters) – Nigeria claimed an early success for its military offensive against Islamist insurgents in the northeast on Monday, saying the militants’ activities had been stifled by nearly a week of attacks on their bases.

Military officers in the combat zone, deep in a semi-desert frontier region, said operations continued and that troops faced considerable opposition from well-armed Boko Haram fighters.