Oil & Energy
Controversy Trails Purge In NNPC
The recent mass sack as
part of the purge going on in the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is not going down well within some quarters and stakeholders in the oil and gas sector as groups are urging President Buhari to halt the process.
The Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) and the Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) have opposed the approach, saying it would not help the oil and gas sector.
In a joint statement signed byNUPENG Presdient, Mr Igwe Achese, his PENGASSAN counterpart, Mr. Francis Johnson, as well as scribes of both unions, the groups said though they fully support the fight against corruption, but the fight should not be turned against the workers who the government swore to protect.
NUPENG and PENGASSAN accused the new Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Emmanuel Kachikwu, of not carrying the unions along in the process.
They said the mass sacking of workers was diversionary and urged the MD to focus on how to recover the stolen billions in the sector.
“The ongoing exercise portends a great danger in the oil and gas sector, if workers are meant to bear the brunt of government’s current action where the fight against corruption is now used as an act of vindictiveness against workers,” they said.
The group doubted if the ongoing sack was the idea of President Muhammadu Buhari, describing the MD’s action as acts of cover-up through sack of innocent workers.
“We are, therefore, calling on Persident Buhari to call the GMD to stop the ongoing sack-action in the corporation and set up a team to review his action for justice, equity and equity”, it said.
It noted that efforts to reach the President were being blocked by his protocols.
According to the union, its defence of members, the workers, was a direct challenge to job security and also a contradiction to the promise by Buhari on job creation.
In its reactions, a group, Niger Delta People’s Solidarity Forum has also written to President Buhari opposing the process of the purge.
According to the letter, “those who are public officers with high integrity and have contributed immensely in promoting good governance in public office were crucified with those who have cases to answer”.
It said, the group is pained that patriot and dedicated Niger Delta citizens that are some of the best brains in the world in their chosen fields were some of the victims of this bias and unjustifiable mass sack.”
The letter which was signed by the group’s National President, Comrade George Utomhinm, Secretary General, Moses Efeakpokrire, PRO Miss Lynda Magada, and Co-ordinator for South-West, Chief Andrew Elijah, the forum urged Buhari to reverse some of the sack in the interest of the nation.
Another group, the Isoko Vanguard for Change, a political pressure group from Delta State said the mass sack would not yield the needed result as it would cover up the frauds that stink in the system.
The group urged the new MD to retrace his steps saying the sack had, to a large extent, displaced people of the zone from the corporation.
The group particularly called on President Buhari to prevail on the new MD so as to save the sector from the exit of the best brains being sent packing.
However, NNPC Friday decried attempts by a section of the media to politicize the current appointments and retirements in the corporation by imputing ethnic coloration to it.
NNPC’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ohi Alegbe, in a statement said all action’s so far taken by the corporation, were in line with the extant rules on federal character and also done with the approval of President Muhammadu Buhari.
It explained that the recent promotions, appointments and retirements are all part of restructuring exercise aimed at repositioning the corporation into a lean, efficient, profit-driven organisation and called on Nigerians to discountenance any report aimed at denigrating the ongoing re-organisation in the corporation.
Chris Oluoh
Researchers in Hong Kong and China have developed a new form of battery that is more eco-friendly and longer lasting than lithium ion batteries – and it runs on tofu brine. The new water battery is still in research phases, but if the technology proves to be scalable enough to hit commercial markets, it could be a game-changer for the energy and tech sectors.
“Compared with current aqueous battery systems … our system delivers exceptional long-term cycling stability and environmental friendliness under neutral conditions,” the research team, composed of scientists from the City University of Hong Kong and Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, Guangdong, said in a paper published this month in Nature Communications.
The researchers found that their battery model can be recharged over 120,000 times. “At over a hundred thousand cycles, this could mean a single water-based battery could last at least a decade or so,” states a recent report on the breakthrough from Interesting Engineering. “For applications like grid storage (solar farms, wind balancing), that’s extremely valuable,” the article went on to say.
This kind of lifespan would represent a drastic improvement over the battery technologies that dominate today’s market. Lithium-ion batteries degrade after between 1,000 and 3,000 charge cycles. This could prove revolutionary, as finding an alternative to lithium-ion batteries to power rechargeable devices is a major priority for Big Tech and the global energy sector.
Moreover, these tofu-brine batteries could prove safer and more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion batteries. According to the study authors, the full cells are environmentally benign and nontoxic and can be directly discarded to environments according to various standards.” Water based (also called aqueous) batteries can also potentially be cheap to produce as they rely on ingredients that are less rare in addition to being less hazardous.
Lithium is environmentally harmful to extract, prone to fires, and its supply chains are geopolitically fraught. Currently, China alone controls half of the global lithium market, and is rapidly increasing its stake. In 2024, more than eight in ten battery cells on the planet were made in China. This means that finding a battery model that can compete with lithium-ion batteries in applications like grid-scale energy storage and electric vehicles would have revolutionary implications for global markets.
Researchers around the world have been racing to develop battery models that could diversify the market and make it more competitive and resilient. These models range widely in size, components, and application, with models currently under development for next-gen sodium-ion batteries, quantum batteries, nuclear batteries, and even sand and dirt batteries.
Of course, the irony is that the leading alternatives to lithium-ion batteries are also being developed in Chinese labs. If this new tofu-brine battery proves scalable and applicable outside of a laboratory environment, it could just be another step toward Beijing’s goal of near-total domination of clean energy technology value chains and status as the world’s first and premiere ‘electro-state.’
China’s extreme advantage in global battery making gives it a major point of leverage in global economies as the world continues to electrify at a rapid pace. It is estimated that European demand for lithium in batteries will reach kilo tonnes (thousands of tonnes) of Lithium Carbonate Equivalent by next year, and North American demand will reach 250 kit LCE. it’s all but certain that the vast majority of that demand will be supplied by China.
Other nations are aware of the risk of this dependency, and are taking pains to protect and promote domestic battery manufacturing, but these efforts may be too little, too late. “For globally competitive battery manufacturing industries to emerge outside of Asia over the next ten years, companies will need to do far more than ensure regulatory compliance,” summarizes a McKinsey & Company report released in January. “Challenges will need to be overcome on multiple fronts spanning supply chains, talent management, operations and technology.”
By: Haley Zaremba
The Rural Electrification Agency (REA) says it will spend N100 billion in 2026 to deploy hybrid mini-grids for government agencies within and outside Abuja.
The Managing Directors, REA, Abba Aliyu, disclosed this while addressing newsmen on the sidelines of the 2026 budget defence session
The approved funds form part of the National Public Sector Solarisation programme, a component of the agency’s broader N170 billion budget proposal for 2026.
The initiative is designed to improve electricity reliability for public institutions while reducing operational costs and easing pressure on the national grid.
Aliyu explained that the agency’s total proposed budget for 2026 stands at N170 billion, with N100 billion of the amount dedicated specifically to the solarisation initiative targeting government agencies.
He said the hybrid mini-grid systems combine solar power with complementary energy sources to ensure an uninterrupted electricity supply.
“The total budget size for 2026 operations is N170 billion, out of which N100 billion had been approved for National Public Sector Solarisation.
Aliyu cited the National Hospital in Abuja as an example where similar infrastructure had been deployed to ensure stable power and cut operational expenses.He added that beyond the Solarisation
Recall that earlier in February 2026, REA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to deploy solar power systems to 15 public institutions across Nigeria.
The project will be implemented under the Regional Off-Grid Electricity Access Project (ROGEAP), a World Bank-supported initiative aimed at expanding off-grid electricity access across West Africa and the Sahel.
ECOWAS will provide a $700,000 grant to fund the installation of solar photovoltaic systems in selected rural health centres and schools in the Federal Capital Territory, Niger, and Nasarawa States.
Oil & Energy
PIA: TotalEnergies Transfers OLO Oilfield HCDT Obligation To Aradel ……Says HCDT Enabled Completion of 100 Projects In 2 years
In his remarks, the Community Affairs Manager, Aradel Holdings Plc, Blessyn Okpowo, affirmed the company’s commitment to honouring all PIA obligations and continuing Total Energies’ community engagement approach.“We want to say that in line with the PIA, we will honour commitments and duties required of the settlor and we want to work very smoothly with the way TotalEnergies has worked with them,” he stated.
He recognised the Commission’s role in approving the Community Development Plan (CDP) before project start, underscoring regulatory excellence.The parties noted that between 2023 and 2025, the trust has enabled the completion of more than 100 community projects, spanning water supply, electricity, road infrastructure, education, and healthcare with a further 40 projects currently ongoing.