Nigerian oil minister appoints Musa Sheikh as new OPEC governor

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Permanent Secretary at the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources Musa
Sheikh has been appointed the country's new OPEC governor by Oil Minister
Diezani Alison-Madueke, a ministry statement said Sunday.

Sheikh, 54, replaces Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo who was replaced last
April as the chief executive of the state oil company Nigerian National
Petroleum Corp., the statement said. Since then Nigeria has not had an OPEC
governor.

Sheikh, a mining engineer by profession, was appointed permanent
secretary to the oil ministry on July 8. He holds a masters degree from the
Imperial College, London, and previously headed the Ministry of Mines and
Steel.

Since her appointment to the Oil Ministry, Alison-Madueke has rung the
changes in Nigeria's strategic industry, with the appointment of Austin
Oniwon as new head of the NNPC and Andrew Obaje as head of the industry
watchdog, the Department of Petroleum Resources.

Separately, white collar oil workers union Pengassan said in a statement
Sunday Africa 's top oil producer had nothing to show for its OPEC membership.

"It strikes us that Nigeria will struggle without conviction to showcase
the corresponding impact of the colossal resources that accrued to her from
the oil sector, after 39 years of her OPEC membership," Pengassan General
Secretary Bayo Olowoshile said.

The union said Nigeria had joined OPEC to benefit from the fiscal and
legal policies adopted by other OPEC members, but added that every other OPEC
country, with the exception of Nigeria, had enjoyed real economic growth and
development.

Nigeria is OPEC's sixth largest oil producer, exporting more than 2
million b/d of oil, but over 70% of its 150 million people live on less than
$2 a day, according to World Bank statistics.

--Staff, newsdesk@platts.com