Column

RSUST: In The Eyes Of The Storm

Published

13 years ago

August 17, 2012

Academic activities at the Rivers State university of
Science and Technology, Port Harcourt, penultimate Monday was paralysed following
an industrial dispute declared by the Academic Staff Union of Universities
(ASUU) in the University over the re-appointment of Professor Barinmne Fakae as
the institution’s acting Vice Chancellor.

The re-appointment of Prof Fakae for a second term at the
expiration of his first tenure had generated so much controversy within and
outside the university community which climaxed to a proclamation of an
indefinite strike by ASUU. The union among other demands requested for a
reversal of Fakae’s appointment by Governor Chibuike Amaechi, the visitor to
the institution.

ASUU, among other considerations accused the state governor
of not following due process in the selection process of a new Vice Chancellor
in accordance with the statutory provisions establishing the university.

However, the state government, through the state
Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs Ibim Semenitari stoutly
defended government’s wisdom in re-appointing Fakae as acting Vice Chancellor,
citing, among others, his unprecedented achievements in elevating the
university from its former 76th to 19th position out of 117 universities in the
country.

Mrs Semenitari explained that the governor followed due
process while re-appointing Fakae as the Vice – Chancellor, noting that
Professor Fakae, as a respected senior citizen of the state had brought honour
and glory to the state and elevated the nation’s premier University of Science
and Technology to enviable heights, and wondered why on earth anybody could
fault or ignore such impressive feat.

It would be recalled that the Dr. Felix Igwe-led executive
of ASUU in RSUST last week gave a one-week ultimatum to the state government to
reverse Fakae’s appointment which expired last Friday culminating to a full
strike on Monday.

As much as we appreciate that both sides of the dispute may
have good reasons for their respective positions on the critical issue of
appointment of a new Vice Chancellor by virtue of the enabling law establishing
the institution, methinks however that RSUST has had enough of crisis in its
history.

This current crisis which to many stakeholders – parents,
students, staff among others is one too many and, from all indications, could
be averted if and only if the parties concerned could appreciate each other’s position.

Hitherto, the university had lost so much, leading to
extension or loss of academic programmes and sessions, backlog in call-up for
national service, accumulated convocation/graduation of students,
de-accreditation of some academic programmes and delay in the release of
results. The list is, indeed legion.

Expectedly, stakeholders: students, parents and staff were
worst hit by the ugly scenario as the university kept on degenerating to
unacceptable level up till few years ago when normalcy was restored in the
university.

It is against this backdrop that everybody strongly feels
agitated by the current imbroglio between the government and ASUU. The matter
can be amicably resolved on a round table.

The need for an open-minded dialogue is therefore inevitable
and imperative so that the university can transit to the next level of academic
excellence and infrastructural development.

We must not allow the institution to degenerate further.
RSUST is our baby. We must not allow it to die or suffer from any mortality
occasioned by human infallibility.

Rivers people must ensure that the vision of the founding
fathers of the institution is sustained and realised now and in future.

ASUU needs to have a re-think on the issue and open up
channels for negotiation for immediate resolution of the grey areas.

To insist on strike will, for sure, expose the university to
too many uncertainties. Students will
again be delayed, facilities compromised and milestones achieved so far
will be jeopardised.

We think that ASUU should firstly shelve the strike since it
is avoidable and then dialogue with the government on the way forward.

Ironically, reports of violence and battering of Dr. Felix
Igwe, ASUU’s chairman by unknown persons is most condemnable and unacceptable
in a civilised and democratic society. I believe strongly that the ASUU boss is
not the issue. The matter goes beyond him as a person. But if it is perceived
that he is using the office to enhance his popularity, then and only then,
lawful means of easing him out will apply.

ASUU, government and the governing council of the
institution should go back to a round table with open mind and honesty so as to
resolve all the issues at stake.

Goodluck Ukwe

Column

Renewable Energy Faces Looming Workforce Crisis

Published

3 days ago

August 18, 2025

The Tide

Despite a discouraging political climate and unprecedented uncertainty in the United States clean energy sector, low costs of wind and solar energy continue to drive growth of the domestic clean energy sector.

However, while market forces continue to support the expansion of renewable energy capacity, the sector faces critical challenges extending beyond the antagonism of the Trump administration.

The continued growth of solar and wind power risks being hampered by several mitigating factors, including (but not limited to) intensifying competition over increasingly scarce suitable land plots, stressed and volatile global supply chains, lengthy and unpredictable development processes, Complex and overlapping permitting processes, and a critical talent gap.

The renewable energy labor shortage has been years in the making, but is no less closer to resolution. The issue spans both white collar and blue collar positions, and threatens to kneecap progress in the booming sector.

Between the years of 2011 and 2030, it is expected that global levels of installed wind and solar capacity will quadruple. Analysis from McKinsey & Company concludes that “this huge surge in new wind and solar installations will be almost impossible to staff with qualified development and construction employees as well as operations and maintenance workers.

“It’s unclear where these employees will come from in the future,” the McKinsey report goes on to say.

He continued that “There are too few people with specialized and relevant expertise and experience, and too many of them are departing for other companies or other industries.”

The solar and wind industries are suffering from a lack of awareness of career paths and opportunities, despite their well-established presence in domestic markets.

Emergent clean energies face an even steeper uphill battle. Geothermal energy, for example, is poised for explosive growth as one of vanishingly few carbon-free energy solutions with broad bipartisan support, but faces a severe talent gap and punishingly low levels of awareness in potential talent pools.

But while the outlook is discouraging, industry insiders argue that it’s too soon to sound the alarms. In fact, a recent report from Utility Drive contends that “solutions to the energy talent gap are hiding in plain sight.”

The article breaks down those solutions into four concrete approaches: building partnerships with educators, formulating Registered Apprenticeship pathways, updating credential requirements to reflect real-world needs, and rethinking stale recruitment strategies.

Targeting strategic alliances with educational institutions is a crucial strategy for creating a skilled workforce, particularly in emerging sectors like geothermal energy.

Businesses can, for example, partner with and sponsor programs at community colleges, creating a pipeline for the next generation of skilled workers. Apprenticeships serve a similar purpose, encouraging hands-on learning outside of the classroom. Such apprenticeships can apply to white collar positions as well as blue collar roles.

“If we can figure out a way to educate the younger generation that you can actually have a career that you can be proud of and help solve a problem the world is facing, but also work in the extractive industry, I think that could go a long way,” said Jeanine Vany, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Canadian geothermal firm Eavor, speaking about the geothermal energy talent gap.

These approaches won’t solve the talent gap overnight – especially as political developments may discourage would-be jobseekers from placing their bets on a career in the renewables sector. But they will go a long way toward mitigating the issue.

“The clean energy transition depends on a workforce that can sustain it,” reports Utility Drive. “To meet the hiring challenges, employers will benefit from looking beyond the next position to fill and working toward a strategic, industry-wide vision for attracting talent.”

By: Haley Zaremba

Column

Why Oil Prices Could See Significant Upside Shift

Published

3 weeks ago

July 28, 2025

The Tide

The 9th OPEC International Seminar was held in Vienna recently, wherein participants discussed energy security, investment, climate change, and energy poverty, with a particular emphasis on balancing these competing priorities.

According to commodity analysts at Standard Chartered, the summit, titled “Charting Pathways Together: The Future of Global Energy”, featured significantly greater engagement from international oil companies and consuming country governments, with discussions converging on a more inclusive shared agenda rather than non-intersecting approaches seen in previous years.

However, StanChart reported there was a clear mismatch between what energy producers vs. market analysts think about spare production capacity.

Unlike Wall Street analysts, who frequently talk about spare capacity of 5-6 million barrels per day (mb/d), speakers from several sectors of the industry noted that spare capacity is both limited and very geographically concentrated.

StanChart believes this erroneous assumption about spare capacity has been a big drag on oil prices, and the implications for the whole forward curve of oil prices could be potentially profound once traders realize that roughly two-thirds of the capacity they thought was available on demand does not actually exist.

This makes the analysts bullish about the general shape of their forecast 2026 price trajectory (Figure 32), i.e., a set of significant upward shifts as opposed to the flat trajectory seen in the market curve and in analyst consensus.

In other words, oil prices could have as much as $15/barrel upside from current levels.

StanChart is not the only oil bull here. Goldman Sachs recently hiked its oil price forecast for H2 2025, saying the market is increasingly shifting its focus from recession fears to potential supply disruptions, low spare capacity, lower oil inventories, especially among OECD countries and production constraints by Russia.

GS has increased its Brent forecast by $5/bbl to $66/bbl, and by $6 for WTI crude to $63/bbl, slightly lower than current levels of $68.34/bbl and 66.24/bbl for Brent and WTI crude, respectively.

However, the Wall Street bank has maintained its 2026 price forecast at $56/bbl for Brent and $52 for WTI, due to “an offset between a boost from higher long-dated prices and a hit from a wider 1.7M bbl/day surplus.’’ Previously, GS had forecast a 1.5M bbl/day surplus for the coming year.

Further, Goldman sees a stronger oil price rebound beyond 2026 due to reduced spare capacity.

EU natural gas inventories have climbed at faster-than-average clip in recent times. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data, Europe’s gas inventories stood at 73.10 billion cubic metres (bcm) on 13 July, good for a 2.31 bcm w/w increase.

Still, the injection rate is not enough to completely fill the continent’s gas stores, with the current clip on track to take inventories to about 97.9 bcm, or 84.3% of storage capacity, at the end of the injection season.

Europe’s gas demand remains fairly lacklustre despite extremely high temperatures across much of the continent in recent weeks.

According to estimates by StanChart, EU gas demand for the first 14 days of July averaged 583 million cubic meters/day, nearly 3% lower from a year ago but a 10% improvement from the June lows.

However, StanChart is bullish on natural gas prices, saying the market is likely underestimating the likelihood of more Russian gas being taken off the markets.

Back in April, U.S. senators Lindsey Graham (Republican) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat), introduced “Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025”, with the legislation enjoying broad bipartisan support (85 co-sponsors in the Senate out of 100 senators).

In a joint statement on 14 July, the two senators noted that President Trump’s decision to implement 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas if a peace agreement is not reached within 50 days but pledged that they will continue to work on “bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation that would implement up to 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas”.

StanChart has predicted that the Trump administration is unlikely to take actions that risk driving oil prices higher. However, Russian gas remains in the crosshairs, with U.S. LNG likely to see a surge in demand if Russian gas exports are curtailed.

StanChart estimates that the EU’s net imports of Russian pipeline gas averaged 79.8 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) in the first 14 days of July, with all non-transit flows into the EU coming into Bulgaria through the Turkstream pipeline, with Hungary and Slovakia also receiving Turkstream gas.

There was also a flow of about 65 mcm/d of Russian LNG in the first half of July, with Russia providing 18.6% of the EU’s net imports. StanChart has predicted that we could see a strong rally in natural gas prices if Washington slaps Moscow with fresh gas sanctions.

By: Alex Kimani

Column

Nuclear Stocks Soar on Stargate AI Infrastructure Announcement

Published

7 months ago

January 28, 2025

The Tide

Over the past couple of years, the nuclear energy sector has enjoyed a renaissance in the U.S. and many western countries, thanks to the global energy crisis triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine, high power demand and nuclear’s status as a low-carbon energy source.

Uranium demand has soared, thanks to a series of policy “U-turns” with governments from Japan to Germany revising plans to phase out nuclear power.

Uranium spot prices hit an all-time high of $81.32 per pound in February, double the level 12 months prior.

According to the World Nuclear Association, demand from reactors is expected to climb 28% by 2030, and nearly double by 2040. Not surprisingly, the sector’s popular benchmark, VanEck Uranium and Nuclear ETF (NYSEARCA:NLR), recently hit an all-time high.

However, last month, nuclear energy stocks started pulling back sharply, mostly because the sector was seriously overheating. One of the biggest losers was NuScale Power Corp. (NYSE:SMR), with the stock crashing nearly 30% in a matter of weeks.

The selloff kicked off after the company disclosed an agreement with several brokerage firms in which the company may offer and sell from time to time as much as $200M in common stock.

NuScale says proceeds from the sale will be used for general corporate purposes, including operating expenses, capital expenditures, R&D costs and working capital. NuScale is a developer of modular light water reactor nuclear power plants.

Small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) are advanced nuclear reactors with power capacities that range from 50-300 MW(e) per unit, compared to 700+ MW(e) per unit for traditional nuclear power reactors.

Thankfully, nuclear stocks are on fire again after President Donald Trump on Tuesday announced a $500 billion joint venture with Oracle Corp. (NYSE:ORCL), OpenAI, and SoftBank (OTCPK:SFTBY) to build AI infrastructure in the U.S.

The companies have pledged to commit $100 billion to start, and as much as $500 billion over the next four years toward the initiative, with Trump calling it “largest AI infrastructure project in history”.

OpenAI, ChatGPT maker, said it expects the project, called Stargate, to help support American leadership in AI, and that it could create “hundreds of thousands” of jobs in the U.S. Other tech giants including Nvidia Corp. (NASDAQ:NVDA) Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)) and Arm Holdings (NASDAQ:ARM) are also expected to be technology partners in the project.

NuScale stock has rocketed 1,175% over the past 12 months; Oklo Inc. (NYSE:OKLO), which is backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has surged 299%, Vistra Corp. (NYSE:VST) has soared 386% while Centrus Energy (NYSE:LEU) has jumped 73% over the timeframe.

Meanwhile, shares of Nano Nuclear Energy (NASDAQ:NNE) have jumped 1,017% since its May 2024 IPO. The shares made further gains on Thursday after the company was awarded patents related to its designs for a modular transportable nuclear generator.

Nano Nuclear is developing ZEUS, a solid core battery reactor, and ODIN, a low-pressure salt coolant reactor.

Yet another big mover is Baltimore, Maryland-based Constellation Energy Corporation (NASDAQ:CEG), a power utility that sells natural gas, energy-related products, and sustainable solutions.

CEG shares have soared 200% over the past 52 weeks. The company owns approximately 33,094 megawatts of generating capacity consisting of nuclear, wind, solar, natural gas, and hydroelectric assets.

The big nuclear rally kicked off last year after NuScale signed an agreement with Standard Power to supply the data center provider with SMRs. Standard Power–a developer of modular data centers–will use NuScale Power’s power solutions at two separate sites, where up to 12 SMRs (at each site) would be used to provide power for new data centers.

Suddenly, the market took note of SMRs as a viable solution for data centers struggling to keep up with surging power demands by artificial intelligence (AI) computing.

The International Energy Agency has projected that global data center electricity consumption will jump from 460 terawatt-hours in 2022 to 1,000 terawatt-hours in 2026.

The long-term outlook for the nuclear sector remains bullish, with nuclear power expected to meet surging AI demand and lower greenhouse gas emissions.

According to Goldman Sachs, escalating electricity needs from running AI data centers will generate downstream investment opportunities that will benefit utilities, renewable energy generation, and industrial sectors.

The investment bank has forecast that data center power demand will grow at 15% compound annual growth rate from 2023-2030, with data centers consuming 8% of total U.S. electricity output at the end of the forecast period compared to ~3% currently.

Analysts estimate that ~47 GW of additional power generation capacity will be required to meet the growth in U.S. data center power demand by 2030.

Last year, a total of 34 countries, including the U.S., pledged to increasingly deploy nuclear power to reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

According to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) report Electricity 2024, nuclear power generation is forecast to reach an all-time high globally in 2025, exceeding the previous record set in 2021 as new reactors begin commercial operations in multiple markets, including China, India, South Korea, and Europe; output from France climbs and several plants in Japan are restarted.

Kimani writes for Oilprice.com