Seek Ways For Optimal Performance – Speaker To NNPCL

By Oduyemi Odumade

The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dr. Abbas Tajudeen wants the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, to come up with creative ways for the oil sector to perform optimally.

The Speaker stated this when he received the management of NNPCL, who paid him a visit in his office in Abuja.

Dr Abbas, while commending the NNPCL for taking full advantage of the Petroleum Industry Act, PIB, to maximise its commercial potential, decried the state of Nigeria’s refineries such as the one in Kaduna, which he said had been moribund for over 20 years, even though the staff were maintained, paid and promoted.

He described the situation as inefficiency and waste of human resources that needed to be addressed.

He called for measures to turn around the losses suffered by the economy, owing to the non-productive state of the refineries, by privatising them for better management and productivity.

According to the Speaker, the 10th House, and by extension the National Assembly, is fully in support of the fight against oil theft, disclosing that the House has taken the lead in creating a Special Committee on Oil Theft and Pipeline Vandalism, which has been inaugurated.

Earlier, the Group Chief Executive Officer, of the NNPC Limited, Mr. Mele Kyari, highlighted the areas of improvement in the company using the instrument of the Petroleum Industry Act.

The company’s chief, who reiterated that the entity has fully gone commercial with the new law, added that it was hitherto operating at a loss, recording a negative of N803 billion in 2018.

Mr Kyari also informed the Speaker that changes in the company after the PIA, led to the realisation of N674 billion profit after tax in 2021, and over N2trillion income in 2022.

He added that the company had a projected revenue to the tune of N4.5 trillion as expected income in 2023, adding that having gone fully commercial, the company controls over 30% of the market share in the downstream sector.

Edited By Grace Namiji