The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is irrevocably committed to the Buhari administration’s vision of making Nigeria the refining hub in Africa, towards reducing petroleum products importation and easing the pressure on the nation’s foreign exchange, its Group Managing Director, Malam Mele Kolo Kyari, has said.
Kyari also restated that his team had continued to support and actualise Nigeria’s effort at improving the country’s economy from the contributions of the oil and gas sector.
He said: “To meet our aspiration of becoming the refining hub in Africa, we have signed EPC Contract Agreement with Tecnimont SpA for the complete rehabilitation of Port Harcourt Refinery and have obtained FEC approval for SAIPEM to rehabilitate Warri and Kaduna Refineries.
“Plans are in place to develop Condensate Refineries to up to 200kbpod and invest in privately owned refineries. We have just
secured the Federal Executive Council approval to acquire 20% equity stake in Dangote refinery.
“The plan for the complete rehabilitation of all the four existing local refineries, utilizing private capital in form of Project Financing Model, was initiated to ensure their operation and reliability above 90 percent.
“Our ability to attract private capital to fund the rehabilitation of our refineries clearly demonstrate the investors’ confidence we have garnered within the last two years and we are fully committed to rehabilitating the plants back to operation in 33 months.’’
“Additionally, as part of our efforts monetize our huge condensate resources and further deepen local refining capacity, our condensate refinery strategy is modeled after the NLNG business model.’’
With about $1.48 billion committed into the rehabilitation of Kaduna and Warri refineries, the NNPC boss said every extra litre of refined petroleum product that is processed in the country will serve as a relief to the government’s efforts in reducing petroleum products importation.
“As a corporation, we have made it a cardinal objective to rehabilitate our refineries and support private refinery projects to achieve Government’s commitment to sustainable energy security and the economic transformation through infrastructure-led growth.
“This singular approach of domesticating refining would deliver the desired benefits of deregulation through energy sufficiency, employment and economic multiplier with key sectors of the economy,’’ Persecondnews quotes Kyari, the 19th GMD of NNPC, as saying.
On NNPC’s post-Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021, he said the focus on extracting maximum sustainable value from capital assets was necessary in the capital-constrained environment.
He restated that the PIA would institutionalize governance structure of the industry and make Nigeria an investment destination of choice.
“Central to this objective is the transformation of NNPC into a commercially oriented National Oil Company to be registered as a CAMA company. Attaining success requires that we consistently work to achieve our goals through collaboration on multiple fronts and managing our total impact as an enterprise.
“Therefore, a post PIB NNPC our attention must shift towards rapid continuous development and confronting converting our challenges into opportunities as we transition to a new era.
“As we celebrate the passage of the PIB, we at NNPC see a nation that is short of energy; a major catalyst for wealth creation and growth, we see a growing population with much greater growing appetite for energy, we see a nation in need of foreign exchange.
“We see a nation in need of capital to actualize and explore the energy, transform it, create opportunities, and multiply wealth, we see a nation that must integrate by developing midstream and downstream infrastructure as the intersection and bridge to value.
“We see a nation in need of right policy framework to attract new investment while encouraging existing players,’’ Kyari said.
According to the NNPC GMD, to achieve this goal, the commercially focused NNPC will set clear priorities across the segments of the energy value change and entail redefining our strategy, moving from ‘volume to value’ thereby shifting away from a focus on volumes toward the realization of value.
Kyari stressed: “As the industry dynamics continue to shape global competitiveness, the NOCs that will succeed in maximizing their potential enterprise value, and thus maximize their contribution to the nation, will be those who succeed at building capital excellence and operational excellence.
“No doubt, the coming years will be defining for NNPC as we progress to become “commercial NOC,” fully embracing the need to embark on the capital transformation and set our eyes on ensuring profitability at each asset level.
“As we transit to a fully CAMA entity, NNPC will pay particular attention to regulatory compliances including commitment to paying its taxes where legally due in a timely manner to generate economic value to Nigeria.
“NNPC shall secure best possible monitoring systems to comply with all relevant rules
and regulations. NNPC shall make full disclosure of payments to authorities at all times required and shall not tolerate the facilitation of tax evasion by any partner who act for or on behalf of NNPC.
“Our commitment to sustainable performance and growth will continue to leverage on human capacity development and growth which has always been one of our core values.
“We would rededicate our focus on implementing the NNPC People Strategy as WINNING sustainably can only be possible through people, and the Corporation’s rich talent must be recognized and fully harnessed to remain competitive in the fast-paced dynamic global business environment.’’
For the corporation’s commitment to accountability, crude oil reserve and production growth, deepening automation, fixing our refineries and dedicated focus towards transition into an energy company of global excellence, Kyari said the organization has redefined its strategic focus to top five priorities for each Directorate anchored on the principle of Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE).
“Coincidentally, we added to our Transparency, Accountability and Performance Excellence (TAPE) principle another mantra of “Execution Excellence”, in the very year the PIB was passed by the National Assembly.
“Consequently, our growth aspirations post PIB are well understood and our exciting journey to global excellence promises to be quite interesting and fulfilling as we build the most viable and vibrant brand.
“As you could recall, hitherto, NNPC in its 43 years of existence has not publicly declared its account to stakeholders, particularly the 200 million Nigerians. This singular commitment to transparency is yielding appreciable trust and investors’ confidence.
“It is also defining as we open ourselves for examination and demonstrate our resolve to value creation irrespective of the difficult market conditions.
“Our focus has been on increasing production to 3mbpd and growing the reserves to 40billion barrels. In the course of implementing this, we have entrenched a culture of cost discipline and set a target to reduce cost of operations to $10 per barrel while ensuring we monetize our reserves to deliver optimum value to Nigerians.
“Big wins achieved include: Kolmani oil find, Resolution of the dispute in OML, Execution of the Abo OML 125 Heads of Terms, Redefining Nigeria’s Deepwater- Bonga OML 118 Dispute Resolution, Alternative Funding Facilities for NPDC OML 65 and OML 13.
“Other initiatives include: Execution of Gas Development Agreement with SEEPCO on OML 143; Partnership with USTDA for Abuja IPP bankability studies.
“As part of our commitment to energy security, we have ensured steady supply of PMS while maintaining Zero fuel queues. We are also implementing a BOT framework to rehabilitate our pipelines and depots in a bid to ensuring that our infrastructure supports availability of petroleum products across the nation,’’
Kyari, the Geologist, said.
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