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California sues Exxon over plastics recycling ‘deception’

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(BBC)
California’s attorney general is suing ExxonMobil, alleging the oil giant engaged in a “decades-long campaign of deception” about the effectiveness of plastics recycling.

In the civil lawsuit filed on Monday, Attorney General Rob Bonta accused Exxon of contributing to a “deluge” of plastic pollution, while telling Californians that recycling was a fix.

“For decades, ExxonMobil has been deceiving the public to convince us that plastic recycling could solve the plastic waste and pollution crisis when they clearly knew this wasn’t possible,” Bonta said.

In a statement, Exxon blamed California for an inefficient recycling programme.

For decades, California officials have known their recycling system isn’t effective. They failed to act, and now they seek to blame others. Instead of suing us, they could have worked with us to fix the problem and keep plastic out of landfills,” the company said in a statement.

An Exxon spokesperson added that the company had processed more than 60 million pounds (27 million kilograms) of plastic waste into usable raw materials, “keeping it out of landfills”.

Bonta’s office said the case marks the first time US officials have attempted to hold a gas or oil company accountable for deceptive claims about plastics recycling.

California is seeking an unspecified amount of money that Bonta said could come to as much as “multiple billions of dollars”.

“ExxonMobil lied to further its [record]-breaking profits at the expense of our planet and possibly jeopardising our health,” he said.

Last year, Bonta sued ExxonMobil as well as four other oil giants for compensation over climate change damages.

The most recent lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, comes after a nearly two-year investigation by Bonta’s office into the fossil fuel and petrochemical industries and global plastics pollution.

ExxonMobil is the world’s largest producer of resins used for single-use plastics, according a report by Australia’s Minderoo Foundation.

Bonta alleged that, through its marketing, the company was promoting its “advanced recycling” programme to the public as a solution to plastic waste, while knowing that the company would “never be able to process more than a tiny fraction of the plastic waste it produces”.

The 147-page suit alleges that nearly all of plastic waste processed by the company has been turned into fuel instead of recycled plastic.

The deception violated state nuisance, natural resources, water pollution, false advertisement and unfair competition laws, Bonta said.

The world produces over 400 million tons of plastic each year, but only 9% is recycled, according to a 2022 report from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

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Nigeria To Review Inflation Reporting First Time In 15 years

The agency said the expected spike in December inflation did not reflect actual price movements in the economy but was largely a statistical distortion caused by the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index.

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Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has announced plans to revise its inflation reporting methodology.

This followed concerns that December’s year-on-year figure may be artificially inflated due to the impact of last year’s rebasing exercise.

The agency said the expected spike in December inflation did not reflect actual price movements in the economy but was largely a statistical distortion caused by the rebasing of the Consumer Price Index.

Reuters reported that the rebasing, the first in 15 years, adopted December 2024 as the index reference point.

Officials explained that the change is likely to exaggerate the year-on-year inflation figure for December without accurately capturing prevailing market trends.

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Dangote splashes N15bn on cement distributors, targets 90m tons by 2030

Dangote made this known during an event organised by the Group to celebrate its most loyal Dangote Cement customers, where CNG-powered trucks, SUVs and other items were presented to distributors across various performance categories, including regional awards, growth awards, best distributor in export sales and national awards.

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Aliko Dangote, President of the Dangote Group, yesterday, rewarded his cement distributors with gifts valued at about N15 billion.

The group is targeting a cement production capacity of approximately 90 million tonnes by 2030.

Dangote made this known during an event organised by the Group to celebrate its most loyal Dangote Cement customers, where CNG-powered trucks, SUVs and other items were presented to distributors across various performance categories, including regional awards, growth awards, best distributor in export sales and national awards.

According to him, the cement expansion drive forms part of the group’s newly launched Vision 2030 strategy, which is aimed at positioning the conglomerate as a $100 billion enterprise by the end of the decade through industrial expansion and cross-border investments.

“Under this vision, we have actually signed an agreement.

But before even signing the agreement, the target that we have, our cement company, will end up being at 90 million tons by 2030 means that we are 50 per cent more than the entire production of Saudi Arabia,” Dangote said.

He said the group has also signed an agreement to expand its petroleum refinery from 650,000 barrels per day to 1.4 million barrels per day, adding that construction work would commence immediately.

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Nigeria, UAE scrap tariffs on over 13,000 goods

Dr Oduwole said that the tariffs removal was part of a new trade pact aimed at expanding market access for Nigerian goods, businesses, and professionals, under the Nigeria–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in January 2026.

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•Dr Jumoke Oduwole

Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates have signed an agreement to eliminate tariffs on 13,000 manufactured products.

Dr Jumoke Oduwole, Nigeria’s Minister of Industry, Trade, and Investment disclosed this, saying that while the Federal Government has eliminated tariffs on 6,243 products imported from the UAE , they have removed tariffs on 7,315 products imported from Nigeria.

Dr Oduwole said that the tariffs removal was part of a new trade pact aimed at expanding market access for Nigerian goods, businesses, and professionals, under the Nigeria–UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement signed in January 2026.

Under the agreement, Nigeria will immediately remove tariffs on 3,949 products, representing 63.3 per cent of the total, while phasing out tariffs on 2,294 products over five years. Nigeria excluded 123 products from tariff liberalisation.

On its part, the UAE will immediately eliminate tariffs on 2,805 products, representing 38.3 per cent of the total, remove tariffs on 1,468 products within three years, and on 3,042 products within five years.

The UAE excluded or prohibited 593 products.

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