|Economy|
FG to Sell N65 Billion in Sovereign Bonds: The Debt Management Office (DMO) on Thursday, announced its plan to sell N65 billion worth of sovereign bonds on December 17. The debt office disclosed that, the bonds’ maturity dates would range from three, 10 to 20 years. The three-year bonds will be for N10 billion, the 10-year tenor bond would be for N30 billion, while the 20-year tenor bond will be for N25 billion. The bonds will mature on August 2016, March 2024 and July 2034, respectively. The DMO said that the bonds would have 13.05 per cent, 14.20 per cent and 11.15 per cent yield rates, respectively. Source: Businessday

Food Import Bill Drops by N466bn: Nigeria’s food import bill has declined by N466bn within the last three years, the Federal Government has said. The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, revealed that, the food import bill declined from N1.1tn in 2011 to N634bn by the end of 2013, adding that the decline had continued. He also mentioned that, the national food production expanded by an additional 21 million metric tons of food within three years and the agricultural transformation agenda had added N780bn to the economy within the past three years. Source: Punch

Petroleum, Power, Transport Sectors Need $113b Investments in Six Years: The Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE) has estimated that Nigeria requires fresh injection of about $113 billion in six years for the development of the oil and gas; power; and transport sectors of the economy. The agency disclosed that, the country is losing monthly revenue of about $287 million from production sharing contracts to the non-passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). Specifically, the Director-General of the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), Benjamin Ezra Dikki, indicated that in the next six years, Nigeria will require about $18 to $20 billion of investments in the power sector. Source: Guardian

|Oil & Gas|
FG to Revoke Licences of Idle Marginal Oil Blocks: Apparently irked by the delay in development of oil fields, the Federal Government has threatened to withdraw the licences of non-performing marginal blocks by March 2015. The Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), George Osahan, disclosed yesterday, that the department would target the licences of the defaulting operators at the expiration of the deadline. The Federal Government licensed about 28 marginal oil fields since 2003 but only about nine of them have been operational, contributing about 24 per cent to the nation’s oil production. Source: Guardian