Author: damazah@gmail.com

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) has announced a 30 per cent reduction in gas imbalance on the country’s Western Network following the conclusion of the first half of 2026 Nigerian Gas Network Reconciliation (NGNR) Workshop. The biannual workshop brought together gas transporters, suppliers, shippers and off takers to reconcile gas volumes traded between January and June 2026 as part of efforts to improve transparency, accountability and operational efficiency in the domestic gas market. A major outcome of the exercise, a statement from the organisation said, was the introduction of a Network Entry…

SpaceX has ramped up purchases of Tesla Megapack, spending $295 million on the battery storage devices in the second quarter and $329 million so far this year, according to the company’s earnings report released on Tuesday. The purchase illustrates just how interconnected Elon Musk’s universe of companies are. Musk, who is the CEO and largest shareholder of SpaceX, also runs Tesla. Musk’s artificial intelligence business xAI acquired his social media platform, X, in 2025. Earlier this year, SpaceX gobbled up xAI. The industrial-scale batteries are likely being deployed at the company’s xAI data centers. Before xAI merged with SpaceX, the…

A juvenile female of the mantid species Choeradodis rhomboidea was collected as part of an effort to catalog insects in the Amazon.Credit: Bernardo Ferraz/BioInsectaThe Amazon’s lush rainforest harbours a hidden world of tiny creatures, nearly all of them unknown to science. But now hundreds of scientists in Brazil are collaborating on a quest to count every species of insect in one expanse of the Amazon — the largest insect-biodiversity study to ever explore the forest from the ground to the canopy.Preliminary data suggest that the number of insect species could surpass 40,000, which is almost 0.7% of the widely accepted…

The pressure is growing on the Fifa president, Gianni Infantino, with many countries withdrawing their support following the bungled World Cup sell-off. However, how key is Infantino’s relationship with each confederation and is it likely that an election contest will actually happen? We look at the key considerations, confederation by confederation.1) How does each confederation view Infantino’s re-election?Uefa (Europe) has firmly led the moves under way to achieve Infantino’s removal. The threat last week to boycott all Fifa competitions if the Fifa Forward Enterprise scheme was not scrapped contributed hugely to its failure. In a scathing statement on Saturday, Uefa…

The movie, which is newly retitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe – Vrach Frankenshteyn and rated R, will be available to stream later this month Although The X-Files: I Want to Believe fared decently at the box office, critics attached the 2008 film as “baggy, draggy, oddly timed and strangely off the mark” (The New York Times), “basically TV writ large” (New York Post), and “in not knowing who it needs to please, I Want to Believe pleases no one” (Rolling Stone). What filmmaker Chris Carter believes (or wants to believe) is that concessions he had to make to…

The Chairman, Federal Civil Service Commission, Prof. Tunji Olaopa, has described urologists as mediators in a tribute to Prof. Olayiwola Shittu as he turns 70 on Wednesday August 5 and retires from the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan Shittu is a renowned consultant Urologist and Professor of Surgery at the College of Medicine, University of Ibadan. In a statement titled “Prof. Olayiwola Shittu: Celebrating the Urologist as a Mediator at 70”, Olaopa on Monday described Shittu as a brother and friend who is widely respected for his expertise in prostrate cancer, reconstructive urology, and surgical outcomes in resource-constrained environments, and…

For the first time since SpaceX went public, the world is getting a first-hand look into the trillion-dollar corporation’s financials. The Elon Musk-run business reported its second quarter earnings on Tuesday, saying that its revenue jumped 92% since June.SpaceX beat Wall Street’s expectations, reporting $7.81bn in revenue, versus analysts’ predictions of $6.93bn. It reported a loss of $541m.The positive numbers will likely quell some fears from nervous investors who have been waiting for more insight into the rocket ship company’s potential for profit.SpaceX had a blockbuster initial public offering in June with the largest-ever stock market debut in history. The…

Pentagon estimate given to Congress covers extended troop presence in the US capital through January 2029.Published On 4 Aug 20264 Aug 2026The extension of the United States National Guard deployment in Washington, DC until January 2029 will cost roughly $1.4bn, according to a Defense Department estimate provided to Congress.The figure, covering fiscal years 2027-2029, is based on an average of 2,500 Guard members remaining in the capital. The estimate was released in response to questions from Democratic US Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe deployment has drawn criticism from local officials in Washington who…

Peter Uzoho Major cooking gas offtakers made an excess N1,600 markup on every kilogramme of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) bought from Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), buying at N800 per kg and selling to Nigerians at N2,400 per kg during the scarcity that occurred in recent months, NLNG Limited has revealed. It said that some of the offtakers were hoarding product at terminals and creating artificial scarcity, a practice that pushed prices far above regulatory benchmarks and inflicted hardship on households across the country.   Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Adeleye Falade, disclosed this at the NLNG Facts & Figures…

SpaceX doubled its revenue compared to last year, in large part thanks to the growth of its Starlink satellite internet service and deals it struck to rent out computing power to Anthropic and Google, the company revealed in its first quarterly earnings since going public. Total sales grew from $4 billion in the second quarter of 2025 to $7.8 billion in Q2 2026, a jump of 92%. Nearly $2 billion of that growth came from its AI division, while Starlink revenue also grew by $1.7 billion. The company still lost $541 million in the quarter, but that was down from…