Cairo. According to an Egyptian Central Auditing Organization report, there were 31 state-run economic organizations in the 2008-09 financial year that had a total budget surplus of about $10.6 billion, including dues to the government of about $6.2 billion. Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation has $3.4 billion in dues, or 55.3% of the total, because of foreign direct investment in the oil sector.

Lagos. ExxonMobil Corp.'s Nigerian subsidiary says it cannot meet some of its production contracts because of delays in repairing a key oil pipeline.

London. Tullow Oil says it has continued to perform strongly in 2010 and believes the outlook for the year is positive. In its IMS for the year so far, Tullow says significant progress has been made on the Ugandan pre-emption and farmdown.

Nigeria. Talks between Nigeria and China over Beijing's bid to buy 6 billion barrels of the OPEC member's oil reserves have been stalled for months due to a dispute over price, a senior Nigerian government official said on Monday.

Nigeria. A Nigerian crude oil pipeline shut down by Royal Dutch Shell this week because of several fires has a supply capacity of around 150 000 barrels per day, an industry source told Reuters today.

Luanda. AMEC has been selected by Chevron subsidiary Cabinda Gulf Oil Company Ltd (CABGOC) to perform front-end engineering design (FEED) for a significant portion of the Mafumeira Sul development project, offshore Cabinda Province, Angola. The contract, the value of which has not been announced, is expected to run until mid-2011.

London. Gulfsands Petroleum provided the following update on the Company's operations at Block 26, Syria where Gulfsands holds a 50% interest and acts as operator.

Bangalore. Algeria plans to increase gas exports 50% by 2015, according to the Algerian minister of Mining and Energy. Several international gas pipelines will contribute to the growth in exports, bringing the total gas exports up to 85 billion cubic meters by 2015.