Good morning and welcome back to Energy Source coming to you today from London.

Overnight the Israeli army crossed the border into Lebanon, bringing the Middle East closer to an all-out war that pulls in Iran. The incursion is Israel’s first land offensive against Hizbollah since 2006 and yet oil prices have barely moved. Brent crude was flat on Monday and down 2 per cent on Tuesday morning in London amid expectations elsewhere that Libya was preparing to restore almost 1mn barrels a day of production.

For now traders are still betting that the escalating conflict will not disrupt supply from any of the region’s major producers and that, if it does, Opec+ members, particularly Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, will have more than enough spare capacity to compensate for disruption elsewhere.

Brent crude prices closed down more than 3 per cent last week after I reported that after two years of production cuts Saudi Arabia is committed to increasing output from December 1. Given the kingdom’s plans and weaker than expected oil demand growth from China, crude prices may not rally even if the conflict worsens. We will keep watching.

Our main report today takes us to Lagos, where our west Africa correspondent Aanu Adeoye asks how much Nigerians should pay for petrol.

Thanks for reading,

Tom

Nigeria’s ‘polarising’ petrol subsidies under new scrutiny

How much is a litre of petrol worth in Nigeria? Now that the country’s 650,000-barrel-a-day Dangote refinery has started producing the fuel, making it locally available, the age-old conundrum needs solving.

In most countries, it is a straightforward answer predicated on the global price of crude and the forces of demand and supply peculiar to each nation.

Nigeria is not one of those countries.

For decades, Africa’s largest oil producer, which discovered oil four years before it gained independence in 1960 from the British, has allowed its citizens to pay some of the lowest petrol prices in the world, subsidised annually by the government to the tune of billions of dollars. In a country bereft of social welfare benefits that typically flow from the government to its people, Nigerians regard cheap petrol as the only social good their oil-rich nation bestows on them.

But the subsidies are financially ruinous and the bill keeps rising every year. In 2022, subsidies guzzled up $10bn and left the state oil company NNPC nothing to remit to the treasury. Spending on fuel handouts represent a not insignificant slice of the country’s GDP. Subsidies are also largely regressive in that they mostly benefit car-owning urbanites, according to an IMF analysis, as well as those well off enough to afford a petrol-powered generator to substitute for erratic electricity supply from the national grid.

There was a mainstream economic consensus — from the IMF, World Bank and your neighbourhood economist — that the subsidies were unsustainable and had to be cut. Yet it became the third rail of Nigerian society, a political potato that was too hot to touch. Periodic and often halfhearted attempts by previous governments to eliminate these subsidies led to nationwide protests.

“Petrol prices are such a polarising topic in Nigeria,” said Noelle Okwedy, at consultant Nextier, an energy advisory. “It’s a combination of factors: high inflation and low trust that funds that would be saved from not paying subsidies would go into development or healthcare or education.”

Then came Bola Tinubu, who became Nigerian president last year. In his inaugural address and to everyone’s surprise, he declared the subsidies were “gone”. Fuel prices tripled overnight as people scrambled. It fed into already worsening inflation. But Tinubu was hailed as embracing economic orthodoxy that would set the country on the path to growth.

His resolve held for only a few months. A decision to devalue the local naira currency meant fuel imports became unbearably expensive and Tinubu’s government reintroduced what the IMF called “implicit” subsidies by capping fuel pump prices. The landed cost of petrol was more than N1,000/litre ($0.60) but petrol station prices hovered around N630 for months. A leaked paper from the finance minister admitted the slumping currency meant the government was on course to pay more for subsidies this year than last.

This is where petrol imports — another anomaly of the Nigerian economy — come in. Despite being a major oil producer and a member of Opec, Nigeria has been unable to refine its own crude for decades, with state-owned refineries moribund, billions of dollars in investment notwithstanding. And so an absurdity continued for decades: Nigeria sent its crude to refineries abroad and imported finished products that the state then subsidised before reaching final consumers.

When the NNPC admitted last month that it was financially strained because of petrol import costs and it owed billions of dollars to its suppliers, it became inevitable that prices would go up. They have since risen by 45 per cent but are still below what they would cost without the help of the government.

Enter Aliko Dangote . . . 

Nigeria’s most consequential industrialist of his generation built his empire on cement and acquired a fortune of nearly $14bn that made him Africa’s richest person. Dangote’s “single train” refinery, the largest of its kind in the world, has long being touted as a potential solution to Nigeria’s importation woes. The facility, located on the outskirts of Lagos, shipped its first petrol last month, sold solely to NNPC, an arrangement brokered by the Tinubu government, according to people familiar with the discussions.

Dangote, who has dollar-denominated debt to service, will inevitably sell petrol to NNPC at global prices. He said as much in a television interview last week. “The removal of subsidy is totally dependent on the government, not on us,” he said. “We have to make a profit. We built something worth $20bn so definitely we have to make money.”

Undoubtedly, Dangote’s home-brewed petrol will be cheaper than the imported variety but it remains unclear whether the state will allow NNPC to sell at market prices. In theory, fully eliminating subsidies could leave enough cash to invest in other areas, particularly health, education and social welfare programmes. But in a country where trust in government is low and a social safety net absent, few believe any savings will be properly channelled. And with an unpopular government sensitive to any protests, there is an understandable reluctance to let the markets fully decide the cost of petrol.

Okwedy said: “The horse has left the stable on subsidies. The NNPC can’t afford it and the government can’t afford it.”

“Something will force them to remove the subsidies: either they are broke and they can’t afford it any more even if people protest or oil prices decline and the naira improves and there’s no need for it any more,” she added. “Other than that, I don’t see them [willingly] taking it off.”

Nigeria needs to figure out how much a litre of petrol costs — it would have far-reaching consequences for a cash-strapped nation. (Aanu Adeoye)

Recommended watching: Can the Dangote refinery help to transform Nigeria’s oil industry — and the wider economy? This FT film explores the country’s struggle to break its “oil curse”.

Power Points

Energy Source is written and edited by Jamie Smyth, Myles McCormick, Amanda Chu, Tom Wilson and Malcolm Moore, with support from the FT’s global team of reporters. Reach us at energy.source@ft.com and follow us on X at @FTEnergy. Catch up on past editions of the newsletter here.

The Financial Conduct Authority has secured its first conviction for illegal crypto ATM operation in the UK.

Olumide Osunkoya pleaded guilty to five offences at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Monday (30 Sept).

Osunkoya, 45, was also convicted for using false documents and possession of criminal property.

Last month, the FCA charged Osunkoya with running a multimillion-pound crypto ATMs without authorisation.

The regulator alleged that Osunkoya operated a network of at least 11 crypto ATMs that processed more than £2.6m in crypto transactions between 29 December 2021 and 8 September 2023.

During that period, he acted as a director of a company named Gidiplus Ltd and later as a sole practitioner.

It was also alleged that Osunkoya, the first person to be prosecuted for illegally operating crypto ATMs, completed no customer due diligence or source of funds checks on those who used his crypto ATMs located in local convenience shops across the country.

The court heard that those likely committing money laundering or tax evasion were using his machines. Osunkoya is suspected to have made substantial profit from the operation.

Crypto ATMs are machines that allow customers to buy or convert money into cryptoassets. There are currently no legal crypto ATM operators in the UK.

The court also heard that Osunkoya created a false alias to try and evade FCA rules.

Sentencing for the offences will take place at Southwark Crown Court at a date to be confirmed.

A HOTEL located on the English Riviera has been rated among the cheapest places to stay in the UK.

The Trelawney Hotel in Torquay, Devon has earned itself a place on Tripadvisor‘s top 10 cheapest hotels list for offering a room rate of just £58 a night.

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Offering “luxury” bed and breakfast accommodation, guests consistently comment on the hotel’s great value and service.

One guest who stayed in June this year wrote on the review website: “Fabulous hotel. Fantastic value for money and only 5 minutes walk down into town.

“Liz and Paul, the owners are very friendly and are very good hosts.”

The hotel is nestled conveniently close to the seafront, just 300m from Torre Abbey Sands.

As the main beach in Torquay, it’s popular with holidaymakers from the surrounding hotels, day visitors and locals with its long sandy shore and great views across to the coastal town of Brixham.

Torre Abbey Meadows is also nearby – a grassy expanse which is perfect for picnics.

The hotel has a variety of rooms on offer, including twin, double, king size, family, and four-poster beds, all of which have en suite bathrooms, colour TVs and complimentary beverage trays.

And alongside good room rates, an ideal location, and comfortable rooms, guests seem to be enamoured with the spotless cleanliness throughout the hotel and its freshly-cooked breakfast.

One guest wrote on Tripadvisor: “The rooms are spotlessly clean and the beds really comfortable…..a real home from home.”

Another said: “No dogs, No dirty stains on the carpets!!
Everything was spotless!”

As part of its extensive breakfast menu, the hotel uses local suppliers where possible, for example, for its free range eggs, bacon and sausages.

Another guest wrote: “Breakfast was delicious. You can opt for as much, or as little as you want and the ordering of breakfast the day before, is a great idea. Definitely would stay again.”

Someone else penned: “A range of cereals , fruit, yoghurts, fresh orange and apple juice, tea and coffee was great, full English breakfast was lovely. I myself really enjoyed the poached eggs.”

One thing in particular that sets Trelawney apart from other hotels is it has an honesty bar, with guests saying they “loved the idea! and it “was a really nice touch”.

As well as being close to a beach, the hotel is ideally located for those who want to explore further afield with the South Devon coastline and Dartmoor National Park.

The English Riviera Conference and Leisure Centre is within 250 metres of the hotel, where you can visit one of its many staged events and swim in its wave machine pool.

Torquay town centre is just a 10 minute walk away from the hotel, with plenty of shops and places to eat.

But if you don’t fancy walking, one guest shared a tip: “A bus runs you into town for just £1.50!”

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The Trelawny Hotel came fourth on Tripadvisor’s cheap hotels list, but offers cheaper rates than the hotels before it.

For Brits looking for a cheap holiday abroad, Marrakesh has been named the best budget Autumn getaway.

It was crowned Most Budget Friendly Autumn Getaway 2024 by DiscoverCars.com.

The former boss of Fujitsu UK has admitted having four meetings with Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells, some of which included discussing Fujitsu’s Horizon IT system.

Previous media reports had indicated that Michael Keegan, the husband of former Conservative minister Gillian Keegan, only met Ms Vennells once and that Horizon was not discussed.

Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly prosecuted after the faulty Horizon software made it look like money was missing from Post Office branch accounts.

Lawyers for Mr Keegan said he regretted that sub-postmasters were prosecuted unfairly and denied playing any part in it.

Mr Keegan has confirmed to BBC News he had four meetings with Ms Vennells during his 13 months as chief executive of Fujitsu UK, from May 2014 to June 2015.

Two of these were face-to-face meetings and the other two were telephone calls.

During his time in charge, MPs launched an inquiry into the Horizon software, and Second Sight, a team of forensic accountants, were investigating the system.

Ms Vennells was chief executive of the Post Office from 2012 to 2019.

In 2022, Mr Keegan successfully complained to the press regulator IPSO, about a Sunday Times article. A summary of the complaint in the IPSO ruling, indicated that he had met Ms Vennells only once.

Lawyers for Mr Keegan said that at the time, he had only remembered having one face-to-face meeting.

Post Office Minister Gareth Thomas said he was surprised to hear about the meetings.

He said: “Certainly [the Post Office IT inquiry’s] conclusions about Fujitsu will be one of the things in particular that I look out for in [the] inquiry report.”

In response to a Freedom of Information request by the BBC, the Post Office said that after a review of emails, it had located references to six meetings during Mr Keegan’s time in charge but that it was “unable to verify whether all these meetings took place”.

It also said it did not believe the information it held was a “complete record of all meetings between both parties”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said two of the meetings referred to by the Post Office never happened.

One conversation, in 2015, between Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells followed Fujitsu being approached by BBC Panorama about its investigation into the Post Office and the flawed Horizon IT system.

And despite previous media reports claiming that the Horizon system was never discussed, a letter from Mr Keegan to Ms Vennells includes reference to the “current application”. It appears that the application he was referring to was Horizon.

In the letter dated 14 November 2014, Mr Keegan appears to be arguing against the Post Office shaking up the structure of its IT systems, including Horizon, and inviting new suppliers to bid to run them.

He also appears to propose that the Post Office should keep at least some parts of Horizon and pitched this to Ms Vennells as an “evolutionary approach that will provide the digital front end you need but will retain much of the investment already made in the stable back end of the current application [Horizon]”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said that his involvement in the Post Office contract related to strategic and commercial decisions, he did not discuss the details of Horizon with Ms Vennells, and that the letter related to Fujitsu’s decision to exit as the supplier of the Front Office Tower – the name given to the IT contract which encompassed Horizon.

The documents reveal that Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells met for the first time within days of his appointment as chief executive of Fujitsu UK.

In an email dated 23 May 2014, he writes: “It was good to meet on Monday.”

He thanks Ms Vennells for her “candour” and adds: “Within Private Sector, you are our most important customer by far and I want that position to remain as such for the foreseeable future.”

His second meeting with Ms Vennells is confirmed in a letter dated 14 November 2014, which he says is a follow-up to “our conversation on 31 October”.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers said the first meeting was not about Horizon and was attended by several other people.

They said the second meeting was a short telephone call to inform the Post Office that Fujitsu would not be bidding in the procurement process to replace Horizon.

A few weeks later, according to the records disclosed by the Post Office, the two chief executives met on 2 December.

Ms Vennells followed this up with an email in which she wrote: “Thanks again for the meeting.”

Lawyers for Mr Keegan told the BBC this was the only time their client attended a one-to-one meeting with Ms Vennells and the purpose of the meeting was to discuss Fujitsu exiting as a supplier of Horizon.

The documents also give the impression of a close relationship.

“Thank you for your time and your honesty. We both have concerns in this situation and I’m glad we were able to share them in a frank way,” Ms Vennells writes.

“I suggest we keep regular contact – and breakfast on me next time, or a drink in (REDACTED).”

Mr Keegan replies by email 10 minutes later.

“My pleasure and really good to spend time together to discuss all these matters in such an open way.”

Mr Keegan’s lawyers say the pair did not keep in regular contact or meet again in person.

They did however have one further telephone call, on 25 June, after Fujitsu was approached by BBC Panorama about the programme’s investigation.

The following week Mr Keegan started a new role as head of Fujitsu Hardware.

The Panorama investigation was originally due to air on 22 June 2015 before being delayed until 29 June, four days after Mr Keegan and Ms Vennells’ call.

The programme, which broadcast the testimony of a Fujitsu whistleblower, eventually aired on 17 August.

The Post Office said it had found references to two other meetings over the final weekend of May 2015 but Mr Keegan denies they took place.

Mr Keegan’s lawyers told BBC News that the prosecutions of sub-postmasters as a result of Horizon data had effectively ceased by 2013, pre-dating his appointment as UK chief executive.

The BBC’s Freedom of Information request was originally made in January 2024 when Gillian Keegan was education secretary and her husband was four years into a Cabinet Office role overseeing the government’s relationship with a key commercial supplier.

The Post Office only responded to the BBC’s request in August, more than six months after the deadline required by law.

Mr Keegan voluntarily stepped down from his Cabinet Office job in late January while his wife lost her seat at the general election in July.

HUNDREDS of users are reporting issues with Lloyds Bank, Halifax and Bank of Scotland this morning.

The main issue appears to be with access to online banking, with more than 60 per cent of customers having problems , according to Downdetector.

A further 34 per cent of people have reported problems with logging into mobile banking services, with

Users have also been locked out of mobile banking services at Halifax and Bank of Scotland, according to the website.

In a statement on X, Lloyds Bank said: “We know some customers are having issues with Internet Banking and Mobile Banking. We’re sorry about this and we’re working to have everything back to normal.”

Follow our live blog below for all the latest updates …

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With a fresh crop of Labour ministers at the helm, is it still education, education, education — so many years after Tony Blair, on the eve of power, first declared that these would be the party’s priorities in government? The new education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, (A-level results: four straight As, as she confessed over the summer) seems to be a star performer in the war for the chancellor’s ear. The party conference in Liverpool, conspicuously gloomy on many fronts, revealed that Rachel Reeves is likely to back a big push to expand early years education and nurseries, a key Phillipson ask.

Ambitious goals set out by Phillipson — an Oxford graduate who grew up in poverty — to “break the link between background and success”, mean that the state is going to need input from schools and charities experimenting with what helps deprived children. Like all spending departments, hers has been warned not to expect largesse. It is left, as one school leader said, “looking for sixpence down the back of the sofa”.

I pondered this lack of funds while gazing into several impressive — and expensive — craters earlier this year on a tour with Lucy Heller, chief executive of the academy schools chain Ark, of the building site to be opened with fanfare next week under the umbrella name of EdCity. This new hub for children and families comprises a primary school, youth club and 132 affordable homes in a neglected, deprived corner of west London. There will also be an adult education centre and nursery.

The buildings that have risen up out of those muddy holes are designed to house services to help families with a variety of needs all on one campus.

“Still a few hard hat areas,” Heller updated me later. “But it looks very handsome.” EdCity is in one of Europe’s largest social housing estates, which has remained stubbornly untouched by the newly buzzy atmosphere a short walk away: Wood Lane is home to a Soho House private members’ club, a gleaming Imperial College outpost, a start-up incubator and more.

“We need partnerships”, says Heller, “for parts [of society] that nearby commercial regeneration don’t reach.” She sees the future of schools as “community hubs”, offering the government a way to provide help to families in need. The £150mn funding for the project came from Ark’s own charitable fundraising and the local council, Hammersmith and Fulham. She is advising academy trusts around England interested in similar projects.

The Laidlaw Schools Trust, consisting of 11 schools in areas of high deprivation in north-east England, is piloting on-site nurseries alongside help with training and skills for parents. The aim is to try to improve the “school readiness” of children from disadvantaged homes — and the employment prospects of the whole family.

Ark and the Laidlaw group are confident that Phillipson will make the most of what she can learn — and copy — from their early years provision, at least. Heller believes that school improvement across the system depends on the question: “How can you share rather than reinvent the wheel every time?”

Clearly, funding from well-supported school groups and education charities is welcome while the public purse is so firmly closed — although reliance on philanthropic cash can be a get-out for the Department for Education. Former FT columnist Lucy Kellaway’s initiative Now Teach, which recruits late-career professionals to shortage subjects such as maths and languages, has lost its government funding. Labour ministers have so far declined to rescue it, citing the previous government’s failure to fund teachers’ pay rises for the squeeze — leaving Kellaway to keep the scheme going this academic year only after donors rode to the rescue.

There will be no swift return to DfE funding experimentation but the tried-and-tested schemes of academy chains such as Ark and Laidlaw have a better chance of flattery by imitation as ministers look at how to fix the complex family problems holding kids back. One Laidlaw head reported that the worst problem in her school right now was the mental health of parents — the future Bridget Phillipsons may rely on the secretary of state seeking solutions outside the classroom.

miranda.green@ft.com