Nigeria names its first woman oil minister

Nigerian acting President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Diezani Allison-Madueke as the country's first woman to be petroleum minister and removed the head of the state oil company.

Allison-Madueke, a former executive at Royal Dutch Shell PLC's local unit, will be in charge of pushing through an oil bill that has been criticized by international companies. Jonathan dismissed Mohammed Barkindo as managing director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. and replaced him with Shehu Ladan, a former executive of the company. With neither Rilwanu Lukman, the former petroleum minister, nor Odein Ajumogobia, the previous junior oil minister, returning to the ministry, Allison-Madueke has the job of seeing the bill through parliament.

Shell, Chevron Corp. and other oil companies have protested Nigeria's plans to raise oil royalties and taxes, which they say will discourage capital-intensive investments in the country's deep offshore Atlantic waters.

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