At the age of 17, Gorgui N’doye, left home in Senegal to be an engineer in New York, but he ended up selling make-up to actors and opening the first Senegalese-French restaurant in Harlem. These days, in his late forties, the unlikely entrepreneur is back in Africa exporting peanuts to Asia.
In 2001, N’doye, who qualified as an electrical engineer from the City College of New York, worked as a salesperson in a company selling make-up to actors in the Big Apple.
“As I travelled Harlem to work there weren’t good restaurants around. I saw a business opportunity and decided to sell my shares at the company. I had contacts here and there, people know people, I worked with them in the build-up and opening of Patisserie des Ambassades in what we call Little Africa. It has been 16 years of hard work since then,” says N’doye.
“This business was needed; there was a demand for it from the African community. The Federal Government contributed 30 percent into the business.”
Many cast doubt on N’doye’s venture except his wife Ken Alice N’doye, who was a caterer making Senegalese food platters for birthdays and weddings.
“Of course people questioned my judgment but I just focused on my work because I believed it was a good thing. Now they know I am a hardworking person,” he says.
It took N’doye two years to get the restaurant at full steam. It was difficult.
“When we first came here in Frederick Douglass Boulevard, Harlem, in 2001, this area was bad, we were the first African restaurant in a gangster’s paradise,” says Ahmadou Ndiaye Jean, the restaurant’s manager who’s also Senegalese.
“In the seventies, Senegalese were the first Africans to land in downtown Manhattan. Most were taxi drivers; they were almost the only daring ones to move into Harlem, then undermined by drugs and criminality. But the rent was cheap. In the late nineties a new wave of other nationalities joined in. At the end of the decade federal authorities revitalized Harlem by renovating the buildings and strengthening law enforcement. The neighborhood is again dynamic and attractive to the middleclass,” says Ahmadou.
“We started the business with less than 10 people and these days we have about 50 staff, a majority of whom is from Senegal. We are open 20 hours. Basically, we just close to clean up. This place is so busy that we don’t have time to close. This is a Little Africa.”
“If it doesn’t kill you, it makes you stronger,” says N’doye about his survival in the crime-ridden Harlem.
“South of Harlem has majorly changed over the years. Now we are living in a gentrification that is better than before 2000. It is now called an entrance to Manhattan. After 16 years we have built very diversified customers. We have been blessed,” says N’doye.
In 2005, N’doye was the entrepreneur of year with the Small Business Administration (SBA) in New York.
In 2009, N’doye returned to Senegal where he explores other business opportunities.
“Since I returned back to Senegal I ventured into a different business of exporting peanuts to Asia and South Africa,” says N’doye.
“I learned a lot from the restaurant business, the interactions I had with African customers helped me with other business ideas back home. There’s a lot to explore in Africa,” he says.
So, the life of this former expatriate entrepreneur took a big circle from Senegal and the Big Apple.

A Little African Dream In Gangster’s Paradise

Diezani Alison-Madueke turns heads, not only because of her sartorial elegance. With a record-breaking career of many firsts, she is a force to reckon with in Nigeria’s corridors of power and among titans of industry.
Her list of career firsts could fill up an entire chapter in Nigeria’s book of powerful people.
Alison-Madueke is the country’s first female Minister of Petroleum Resources, a post she has held since 2010. She was the first woman to lead a country delegation to the annual Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) conference. She was Nigeria’s first female minister of the mega Transportation Ministry and the first woman to be appointed to the board of Anglo-Dutch oil giant, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria. She recently added more feathers to her cap when elected the first female president of OPEC, and also the Gas Exporting Countries Forum.
Alison-Madueke’s rise to the top in an aggressive male-dominated industry has been studied by critics and admirers alike.
As sliding crude oil prices (expected to go down to $30 a barrel according to a recent Goldman Sachs report) send volatile tremors across economies and sectorial bottlenecks linger, there is no hotter seat than Alison-Madueke’s.
OPEC’s decision (largely driven by Saudi Arabia) to maintain production in the face of decreasing oil prices has been called a double-edged sword. One that defends the market share of member countries, yet hurting a few key economies, Nigeria included.
In the scheme of things, Alison-Madueke’s optimism is unmistakable – and unshakeable. She is confident and articulate.
“I am not shaken by the vagaries and viciousness that surrounds the sector, the economy and the politics of Nigeria,” she says when we meet her in February in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.
She says this with gusto; you can tell she has had this attribute all her professional life. She admits her early experience as an architect provided the foundation.
“When you study architecture, you fundamentally have to make structures stand up, the integrity of a building is crucial; it is otherwise a failed project,” she says.
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Early life
Being a creative person, Alison-Madueke decided a career in architecture, at Howard University in the United States (US), would complement her personality. Studying her chosen subject well, and with an MBA from Cambridge, she moved very quickly into construction, facilities and project management in the US, before returning to her home country Nigeria. There is where she understood the nuts and bolts of the oil and gas industry.
“I returned to Nigeria to take up a job in the civil infrastructure section of Shell at the time. I moved into public affairs and soon joined venture relations which [found] me working directly with the major governmental organizations in the oil and gas sector under my domain now. I had to learn the hardcore operational details of the oil and gas industry during that period. Having understood the operational details, I took the position of External Affairs Director – the first time a woman had been made a director in Shell Nigeria in over 70 years of it being in operation.”
With each new step, came even bigger global – and social – responsibilities. The topic of women’s empowerment is not far from her mind.
“All the firsts, each time they came, were very humbling and a great privilege. When you realize that the steps you are taking and the glass ceilings you are breaking open the door for other women to enter into that arena, it is something very pleasing to me. I believe that as women, it is important to remember that there are many other women who have been shut out of many areas of professional expertise and as you rise up the ladder, always remember to turn back and give a helping hand to other women to rise along with you,” she says.
Alison-Madueke identifies her parents as early influencers. Her father had been a teacher in colonial days and attained a scholarship to study in the United Kingdom whilst her mother joined him to study nursing and midwifery. Her father returned to Nigeria to take on a senior position with Shell-BP. To their young daughter, they were strong role models.
“I don’t see how I would have had the innate confidence and strength that I had without that sort of a background and influence,” says Alison-Madueke.
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Confronting challenges
As Nigeria’s Minister of Petroleum Resources, Alison-Madueke sits at the helm of a sector that has been plagued by operational challenges. When she took on the role, her mission was to change the narrative of Nigeria’s core revenue-producing sector, and boost investment.
“This is a period [rife] with challenges as we have seen with the drop in the price of crude over the last few months which has of course, affected the federation’s budget quite drastically as well as [that of] many other crude-producing countries around the world. We are grappling with that, reviewing our processes in the oil and gas sector here to make us much more competitive, to have a much more enabling environment for investors and to begin to look at future investment and ring-fence them now to ensure we have them over the medium to long term,” she says. Nigeria is Africa’s foremost oil producing country and Alison-Madueke’s ministry oversees the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), one of Africa’s largest state-owned petroleum enterprises. A lot of hope is pinned on the sector to take the country forward.
Alison-Madueke’s tenure has recorded some transformatory highs in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector. Her drive to empower local enterprises saw her champion the passage of the Nigerian Oil &amp; Gas Industry Content Development Bill.
The bill was signed into law by Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan in 2010, influencing indigenous participation and the development of local capacities thus changing the face of the sector. It saw a notable growth in the number of Nigerian-owned exploration and production companies and indigenous entrants, which was a first for the industry. Importantly, it created more jobs.
“The act has ensured that well over 300,000 jobs have been created because of the trickledown effect it has had on the economy but more than that, it has brought into play a whole host of new players, across society, into the downstream service sector of the oil and gas industry – from supply, fabrication of parts for the downstream service sector, fabrication of pipe mills, a massive rise in ownership of rigs and marine gold vessels for use in the oil and gas sector. It has given Nigerians first consideration in many areas of the oil and gas sector.”
Stability of supply, distribution of petroleum products and a uniform price regime in Nigeria are still challenges. Alison-Madueke’s leadership has seen to the revamp and rehabilitation of key depots to restore product supply.
The Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), a bid to ensure the oil and gas industry is more transparent in order to attract investment, is yet to be promulgated. While Nigerians wait with bated breath, the Minister sheds more light on its intricacies.
“Despite the fact that the PIB has not been promulgated, the Gas Master plan and areas of fundamental reforms in major oil and gas parastatals such as the NNPC and the NPDC (Nigerian Petroleum Development Company) have been pulled out. The Gas Masterplan is being worked very stringently and has ensured we have not only moved for gas to power but also for gas to industry and to ensure we get value for our gas to export. Quite a lot of reforms have taken place in this area in the last three years to ensure we are not only creative about putting in place the formerly non-existent infrastructure for gas to power, but at the same time, the framework that will allow Nigeria in the next four to five years to become a regional hub for industrialization based on gas.”
In a quest to boost Nigeria’s position as a global oil and gas powerhouse, Alison-Madueke’s ministry has had to deal with the scourge of illegal refineries, crude oil theft, as well as the issue of over 5,000 kilometers of vandalized pipelines.
But Alison-Madueke remains resolute.
“There are no bottlenecks that cannot be overcome,” she says, “but we need to very carefully delineate aggressive responses to a number of issues that we have to deal with. We are working very hard with security services to mitigate this bottleneck. Over the last three years, we have been able to drop the rate of bunkering from 200,000 to about 60,000 barrels per day. It is one of the most irresponsible issues we are faced with as a government because it affects the entire country.”
Identifying pricing frameworks in the gas sector is the next frontier for Nigeria and Alison-Madueke says the sector needs to equip itself better with infrastructure.
“We have put in place over 400 kilometers of pipelines in the last three and half years. We have another over 470 kilometers as we speak for gas infrastructure. We are also trying to attract the necessary investors to help us with that,” she adds.
How does she do it all?
On juggling an incredibly busy professional life with family responsibilities, Alison-Madueke offers a simple formula, which is achieving the right balance.
“Women have really come into their own in all spheres of expertise in this day and age. A woman not only has professional responsibilities to deal with, she is a mother, she is a wife, and she is a sister. A woman handles many roles rolled into one. All my professional roles don’t stop me from playing my other roles. I still have my family-related obligations that I attend to.”
In spite of a hectic schedule, Alison-Madueke takes time off whenever she can.
“The most precious things in life are not the things money can buy. What give me satisfaction in life are the things you cannot pay for: the love of a family, seeing them do well as they grow into their professions and start their own families. When I am standing by a football pitch in the mud and rain, screaming out for our youngest son to make that goal, or just enjoying time out or indoors with them is very refreshing,” she says.
The African woman
Alison-Madueke sees the African woman’s place in society as evolving and her presence now acknowledged with a “no-limit view” on how far she can go. She thanks the Nigerian leadership for effecting the mind-set change in gender issues – at least in government.
“For the first time in the history of Nigeria, we have had a president confident enough to place over 35% of women in top nominated positions in his government. Women are not in tokenism positions anymore. It has been very rare for women to be placed in key positions in government. The Nigerian president has gone out on a limb which is historical where women of this country are concerned and I see this happening all over the continent because African women have come into their own. The times for women have changed. I see, over the next 10 years, major progress for women across the board in Africa and I think it will be quite an accomplishment we will all live to enjoy.”
Among Nigeria’s other powerful female leaders is the globally-famous Nigerian economist and Nigeria’s Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Arunma Oteh, who served as Director-General of the country’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
Alison-Madueke says networks and support structures amongst women are key to ascending the corporate ladder.
“Women are in competition with each other. This is highly unfortunate. Leadership is not about being liked. It is about making tough decisions for the betterment of the whole and as women rise, they should learn to begin to network among themselves. Creating clusters where other women support each other. Men do this very well.
“I envision an Africa with a lot of strong women in a lot of very powerful positions.”
By the same token, she encourages young adults to be more assertive.
“Don’t wait for your ship to sail into harbor. Swim out to it and climb onboard. Learn to recognize opportunities when they present themselves. They may turn out to be the most critical opportunities and game changers in your entire life.”
Alison-Madueke may have derived these words from her own life, seeing resources as sustainable opportunities, but how does she counter opposition and critique?
“For every stage I have come into in life, I have been responsible to a certain segment. That we can open up sectors like the oil and gas industry and allow so many Nigerians an opportunity to benefit from the natural resource that runs under their feet, and that lives can be changed completely from their involvement in a sector which hitherto was a great mystery.
“The responsibility to impact positively on the lives of so many Nigerians is what drives me. Every day, I face this work with a certain fuel and passion and I am not feeble about it. Even in the face of opposition, I channel my energy into the sector that I run.”
Energy. Power. Fuel. Drive.
The words of the oil and gas industry fit the woman.

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The Queen of Black Gold

From the famous words in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice: “All that glitters is not gold; often have you heard that told: many a man his life hath sold.”
Put simply, things that often appear precious may not always turn out to be so. This month, however, I will explore a commodity that proves the opposite to be true. A seemingly unglamorous, not particularly attractive commodity, which has sparked the interest of many: crude oil. It is a topic that is luring huge investment opportunities on our continent.
Even though alternative energy sources abound, crude oil is likely to remain a vital source of energy across the world for many decades to come. Life without oil would be virtually impossible. It is the most important raw material; generating heat, driving machinery and fueling vehicles and airplanes. Its components are used to manufacture most chemical products, including plastics, detergents, paints and even medicines.
Most countries are significantly affected by developments in the oil market, either as producers or consumers, or both. Oil catered for about 34% of the world’s energy needs in 2008. It is expected to continue being a leading component of the world’s energy mix – 30% in 2030, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
About two-thirds of oil is used for transportation in the United States and Canada. In the rest of the world it is more commonly used for heating and power generation.
Brent crude oil is derived from the ‘Brent blend’. It is a combination of crude oil from 15 different oil fields in the North Sea, off the coast of the UK and Norway. This blend is used to price two-thirds of the world’s internationally traded crude oil supplies, making it an obvious choice as the benchmark of crude oil.
Brent crude oil is excellent for making gasoline, and is highly sought after, particularly in industrialized nations. It is a ‘light’ or ‘sweet’ crude oil because it contains less sulphur.
This type of ‘sweet’ crude oil is also produced in a few countries in Africa, with Nigeria being our leading exporter. In fact, Nigeria is the largest producer of sweet oil in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec). Known as ‘Bonny light’, it is similar in composition to the petroleum extracted from the North Sea.
There are two widely used Brent crude oil futures: the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and the Opec price basket.
Opec is an organization of 12 oil-producing countries that effectively controls the world’s oil. Opec members pump out 42% of the world’s annual supply, thereby controlling 61% of exports. These 12 countries hold 80% of the world’s proven oil reserves, to last for 113 years. Opec’s decisions, therefore, are critical to countries that depend on oil imports.
Opec has stated quite adamantly that its goal is “to manage the world’s supply of oil”, which it does “to make sure its members get what they consider a good price for their oil”.
Opec’s second goal is to reduce oil price volatility. Oil and energy minis-ters from Opec members meet at least twice a year to coordinate their oil production policies. Each member country must abide by an honor system, where it agrees to produce only a certain amount. But countries that produce more suffer no sanctions or penalties.
The Opec members are: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Vene-zuela. Saudi Arabia alone produces enough oil to materially impact the world’s supply.
Opec has a basket price – an average of the prices of oil from Algeria, Indonesia, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Venezuela and Mexico – which is used to monitor world oil market conditions.
The WTI is a blend of several US domestic streams of light sweet crude oil. It is also considered a key driver of growing global crude oil supply because of its unique immediacy, breadth and depth of pricing. In times of uncertainty, of massive political unrest or financial crisis, the market tends to flock to the WTI instead of the Opec price basket.
Brent crude originally traded on the open outcry International Petroleum Exchange in London. But after 2005, it traded on the Electronic Intercontinental Exchange, known more commonly as ICE. Brent crude financial futures are also traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange. One contract equals 1,000 barrels, quoted in US dollars.
From the mid-1980s until 2003 Brent crude oil averaged $25/barrel.
My technical analysis shows that Brent crude oil (listed on the ICE) is consolidating within a symmetrical triangle on the monthly chart. This triangle is a horizontal cone-shaped pattern, which could break out in
either direction. It often forms after a rally or a decline. In this case, it has formed within the major bull trend.
A positive breakout of this pattern would be signaled above $120/barrel, with the long-term objective situated at $162/barrel – through the 2008 all-time high of $147/barrel. Alternatively, Brent crude oil could breach the lower slope of the pattern, which would be signaled below $96/barrel, in which case the downside objective would be at $54/barrel. I foresee an upward break through $120/barrel, and a 34% appreciation in price in one to five years – a very brave call. However, this surge won’t happen in a straight line. Brent crude may or may not fulfill that objective, but historically, the longer it takes a pattern to form, the bigger the breakout. And as my leading indicators are bul-lish, a positive breakout seems more probable.
However, the question is twofold: how will a positive breakout in the Brent crude oil price affect African economies, and how will such a breakout benefit our oil companies?
Oil is one of the most powerful tools of trade in the world, and after the Middle East, Africa is one of the world’s largest oil producers. Further analysis sees great potential in Africa, but a lot of challenges have hindered this prospect.
Sixteen African countries are oil exporters, with 500 oil companies participating in African hydrocarbon exploration. According to the EIA, Africa’s proven oil reserves have grown by nearly 120% in the past 30 years, from 57 billion barrels in 1980 to 124 billion barrels in 2012.
In 2012, the BP Statistical Energy Survey reported that the continent produced an average of 8.8 million barrels of crude oil per day in 2011, which is just over 10% of the global output.
In November 2012, Chatham House research found that only 500 wells have been drilled in East Africa to date, compared to the 15,000 wells that exist in West Africa. In 2010, Africa’s oil production represented 12.4% of the world’s total crude oil output, with exporters achieving a higher share, at nearly 20% of the world’s total exports of crude.
Africa remains largely untapped for oil, and at present, many of the oil-producing countries with great promise are finding ways to create a safer haven for investors.
The abundant oil reserves in Africa are undoubtedly the glitter that is attracting many overseas investors. It comes at a time when minerals such as iron ore and copper, which were once economic mainstays, have reached a gradual decline.
But will a higher oil price affect the African economy negatively or positively?
Bear in mind that oil prices are still lower than they were in the late 1970s and early 1980s in real terms, if inflation is adjusted. High oil prices will affect certain African economies differently, depending on whether they are net exporters or net importers.
Oil-exporting economies have a greater advantage because an increase in oil revenues improves their balance of payments. These countries will stand to benefit from the influx of foreign revenue. It can accelerate the implementation of poverty-reduction strategies and develop infrastructure, which ultimately increases employment levels.
However, the biggest challenge of the coming boom will be to ensure that these benefits filter down to ordinary Africans.
There are only 16 net oil-exporting countries in Africa, with 38 countries being net oil importers. High oil prices in these nations will have an adverse impact on businesses, consumers and government budgets in particular. Their terms of trade could deteriorate, thereby affecting their balance of payments, which could lead to lower economic growth.
For oil-importing economies, high prices could increase import bills with adverse effects on inflation, production and employment.
In July 2009, the African Development Bank found that the real impact of high oil prices on African economies is relative. African economies are changing and significant improvements in terms of macroeconomic management are being reported, especially a reduction in inflation. Governments have passed on price increases to consumers, moderated them with subsidies and tax reductions, or have placed pressure on oil companies to keep prices down.
Revenues of the big oil companies in Africa will obviously surge. The world’s population is increasing, becoming more middle class and prosperous, buying more cars and using more oil. For example, the UK reported about 30 million cars with a population of 70 million. It is evident that Brent crude oil will be in demand in the long term, which ultimately advocates my call of a positive breakout of the long-term symmetrical triangle.

Tag: Exporting

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A Little African Dream In Gangster’s Paradise

The Queen of Black Gold

All that glitters is not gold…