NIGERIA'S ECONOMY UP TO 1.92%

REUTERS - Nigeria's economy grew 1.92 percent in the last quarter of 2017 compared with a 1.73 percent contraction in the same period of the previous year, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday.

The OPEC member's gross domestic product (GDP) grew by 0.83 percent in 2017 as a whole after shrinking by 1.58 percent in 2016, its first annual contraction in 25 years.

Oil production rose to 1.91 million barrels a day (mbpd) in the last quarter of 2017 compared with 1.76 mbpd in the same period of 2016, the statistics office said.

The recession in 2016 was largely caused by low crude oil prices and militant attacks on energy facilities in the Niger Delta. Crude sales make up two-thirds of government revenue.

Africa's biggest economy returned to growth in the second quarter of 2017 but the recovery has been fragile since it is largely due to higher oil prices. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) said in December that the economy remains vulnerable.

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Earlier:

2018, January, 26, 12:15:00 NIGERIAN OIL PRICE: $45-$46 BLOOMBERG - “We’ve gotten to a point where we don’t care,” whether prices will be sustained at the level that they have recently risen to, Adeosun said during an interview in her office in the capital, Abuja. “We’ve been able to balance our budget at $45-$46 per barrel and we’ve got to learn to live comfortably at that level.”

2018, January, 8, 19:10:00 NIGERIA'S FUEL DEFICIT BLOOMBERG - A bigger problem is that Nigeria caps gasoline prices, often at levels below retailers’ costs. The cap today is set at 145 naira, or $0.40, a liter, which would translate to $1.52 per gallon.

2017, December, 27, 12:20:00 NIGERIA'S CHALLENGES IMF - Overall growth is slowly picking up but recovery remains challenging. Economic activity expanded by 1.4 percent year-on-year in the third quarter of 2017—the second consecutive quarter of positive growth after five quarters of recession—driven by recovering oil production and agriculture.

2017, November, 14, 18:00:00 NIGERIA NEED INVESTMENT $5.5 BLN REUTERS - Nigeria will move ahead with plans to borrow $5.5 billion from foreign investors after the Senate on Tuesday approved President Muhammadu Buhari request for the move.

2017, September, 15, 08:50:00 NIGERIA NEEDS TIME Emmanuel Kachikwu, Nigeria’s minister of state for petroleum resources, told the Financial Times that the west African nation’s energy sector was still suffering from years of violent disruptions and needed more “recovery time” before joining a supply deal agreed last year between some of the world’s biggest oil producers.

2017, September, 4, 12:25:00 NIGERIA'S OIL PRODUCTION: 2.2 MBD The figure of around 2.2 million to 2.3 million b/d includes about 300,000 to 400,000 b/d of condensates, which implies that its current crude oil production is at the coveted 1.8 million b/d mark.

2017, April, 12, 17:30:00 WBG - AFRICA'S ECOMOMIC DIFFICULTIES Nigeria, South Africa, and Angola, the continent’s largest economies, are seeing a rebound from the sharp slowdown in 2016, but the recovery has been slow due to insufficient adjustment to low commodity prices and policy uncertainty. Furthermore, several oil exporters in the Central African Economic and Monetary Community (CEMAC) are facing economic difficulties.