Beijing’s biggest African offer yet is a risky gambit to gain a major stake in the upstream and downstream sectors of Nigeria’s oil business
Equal measures of optimism and scepticism greeted China’s
announcement of an agreement to build three oil refineries worth US$23 billion. The
terms of the memorandum of understanding are clear; the source of
financing and the economics of the deal are not. With newly inaugurated
President Goodluck Jonathan stamping his authority on Abuja
and the sacking of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC)
director, the deal could meet the same fate as the
oil-for-infrastructure pacts signed under former President Olusegun
Obasanjo ....
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