By Adedapo Adesanya

Crude oil appreciated on Thursday following news that the US and China agreed to hold more trade talks, as announced during a phone call between US President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

Brent crude futures gained 48 cents or 0.7 per cent to trade at $65.34 a barrel and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude improved by 52 cents or 0.8 per cent to finish at $63.37 a barrel.

President Trump and Chinese leader Xi spoke on phone yesterday and plan to hold trade talks soon

According to reports, the discussions between the leaders of the two world’s largest economies were held at President Trump’s request.

The US president wrote in a post on Truth Social that the call lasted one and half hours, and focused exclusively on trade. He added that a US delegation led by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would meet with a Chinese team for negotiations “shortly,” and that both leaders extended invitations to visit each other’s countries.

The talks come amid persistent tension between the world’s two largest economies, and after Trump posted Wednesday that the Chinese leader was extremely hard to make a deal with.

The phone call is the first time that Mr Trump and Mr Xi are confirmed to have spoken since the US leader’s return to office in January. Since then, the pair had slapped huge tariffs on each other, before agreeing a truce last month.

Also, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and President Trump are also in direct communication as part of Canada’s bid to persuade the US to lift tariffs.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, cut its July prices for Asian crude buyers to nearly the lowest level in two months.

The Saudi price cut followed a move by the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies (OPEC+) last weekend to increase output by 411,000 barrels per day for July.

The strategy of Saudi Arabia, OPEC’s de facto leader, is partly to punish over-producers by potentially unwinding 2.2 million barrels per day of cuts between June and the end of October.

Wildfires in Canada that threaten to reduce oil production are providing price support with almost 7 per cent of Canada’s production affected.

This comes despite a potentially oversupplied market in the second half of the year with expected OPEC+ production hikes.

By Dipo Olowookere

Shareholders of Oando Plc may get more value for their money in the 2025 financial year as the integrated energy company intends to execute some strategies, including an aggressive drilling program, designed to yield positive results.

The chief executive of the firm, Mr Wale Tinubu, while commenting on the financial performance of the organisation for the 2024 fiscal year, said “2025 will be our year of execution.”

Last year, Oando impressed investors with a 44 per cent rise in revenue to N4.1 trillion from the N2.9 trillion recorded in the preceding year, with the post-tax profit up by 267 per cent to N220 billion from N60 billion in 2023.

In the upstream segment of the business, Oando’s production went up by 3 per cent to 23,727 barrels of oil equivalent per day, comprising crude oil production, which rose by 27 per cent to 7,558 barrels per day, as NGL production and gas decreased respectively by 35 per cent to 156 bpd, and 5 per cent to 16,013 boepd.

As for the downstream, Oando’s trading subsidiary sold 20.7 million barrels of crude oil in 2024, 37 per cent lower than what was recorded a year earlier. This was attributed to structural changes in the Nigerian oil market.

Additionally, refined product volumes declined by 64 per cent to just over 599 kMT, due to weakened domestic demand, driven by the challenging macroeconomic in-country.

“The year 2024 was a defining year for Oando, with the successful acquisition and integration of NAOC marking the culmination of a decade-long strategic growth journey which has significantly deepened our upstream portfolio, resulting in our assumption of operatorship of the OML 60–63 series and the doubling of our working interest in the assets from 20 per cent to 40 per cent, as well as our 2P reserves from 500 million barrels of oil equivalent to 1 billion barrels,” Mr Tinubu stated.

He said this year, “Our key priorities shall include unlocking synergies from the acquisition, addressing above-ground security risks through the implementation of a revamped security framework aimed at curbing the persistent theft of oil, cost optimization, balance sheet restructuring, enhancing operational efficiency, and leveraging technology to improve productivity across our operations.”

“In our bid to ramp up production towards achieving our target of 100,000 bopd and 1.5 tcf of gas by 2029, we shall pursue a dual-track approach of rig-less interventions and well workovers, complemented by an aggressive drilling program.

“We are excited by the opportunities that lie ahead and remain committed to delivering enhanced shareholder returns, shared prosperity and maintaining our position as a leading player in Africa’s evolving energy landscape,” he added.

By Dipo Olowookere

The domestic stock market appreciated by 1.63 per cent at Thursday’s trading session ahead of the Eid-El Kabir (Sallah) break on Friday and Monday.

Investors were in high spirits yesterday, with bargain-hunting dominating the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited because of the renewed confidence in the market.

Consequently, the market capitalisation closed higher by N1.158 trillion to N72.276 trillion from the preceding day’s N71.118 trillion and the All-Share Index (ASI) increasing by 1,835.02 points to 114,616.75 points from 112,781.73 points.

Business Post reports that the commodity index gained 2.96 per cent, the energy space improved by 2.73 per cent, the industrial goods sector surged by 2.37 per cent, the banking counter rose by 2.21 per cent, the insurance industry soared by 1.31 per cent, and the consumer goods index went up by 1.02 per cent.

It was a busy session on Customs Street on Thursday due to strong appetite for local equities, with the trading volume, value and number of deals spiking by 144.40 per cent, 104.27 per cent, and 21.72 per cent apiece.

A total of 1.5 billion stocks valued at N33.5 billion exchanged hands in 16,410 deals during the session versus the 598.2 million stocks worth N16.4 billion traded in 13,482 deals at midweek.

Fidelity Bank was traders’ toast yesterday, leading the activity chart with the sale of 829.7 million equities for N16.0 billion, followed by Legend Internet, which exchanged 180.3 million units for N1.0 billion.

Further, Zenith Bank transacted 62.8 million shares valued at N3.1 billion, Japaul traded 34.8 million equities worth N69.6 million, and GTCO sold 30.9 million units valued at N2.2 billion.

Investor sentiment remained bullish during the trading day after the bourse ended with 40 appreciating equities and 22 depreciating equities, representing a positive market breadth index.

Champion Breweries and NGX Group gained 10.00 per cent each to sell for N7.70, and N39.60 apiece, MTN Nigeria appreciated by 9.99 per cent to N319.20, Oando soared by 9.96 per cent to N56.85, and Morison Industries chalked up 9.90 per cent to trade at N3.22.

On the flip side, Northern Nigeria Flour Mills depreciated by 9.97 per cent to N125.05, ABC Transport crashed by 9.77 per cent to N2.40, Legend Internet weakened by 9.49 per cent to N5.34, Livestock Feeds soured by 7.82 per cent to N8.25, and Omatek deflated by 7.59 per cent to 73 Kobo.