Sen. Margery Okadigbo, Chairman, Board of Directors, Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) says roadmap for new NNPC will be hinged on the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) 2021.
Okadigbo made this known on Tuesday in Abuja at the ongoing 21st Nigerian Oil and Gas (NOG) Conference and Exhibition, tagged “Funding the Nigerian Energy Mix for Sustainable Economic Growth.”
Okadigbo and Malam Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director, NNPC spoke on NNPC Spotlight Session.
The PIA 2021 empowered and restructured the organisation into a new liability company to be unveiled by President Muhammadu Buhari on July 19.
The board chairman, in an address, said the PIA was a testament to Nigeria’s commitment to have in place the right environment for the advancement and development of oil and gas industry.
“NNPC limited is a commercially oriented and profit driven company which creates opportunities for improved indigenous participation.
“The new entity presents opportunities for enhanced revenue and returns on investment,” she said.
She said the oil and gas sector undoubtedly played a critical role to Nigeria’s prosperity while the central theme of the oil and gas strategy was reform though various initiatives were currently ongoing .
This reform agenda, she said, was best encapsulated in the petroleum industry act, adding that NNPC limited was building an effective organisation that would pursue the goals of the Nigeria people.
She explained that effective implementation of the PIA would stimulate sustainable social impact and creation of quality jobs for the teeming youth and consequently change social perception of the industry.
Speaking, Kyari said the NNPC had already crossed over to the new NNPC limited on July 1 while awaiting launch of the new company by the president.
“The meaning of this to the industry is the ability to have a partner of choice to support you, the partner that will be the largest capitalised company in Africa.
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“A partner that will be known for the best practices in everything you can think of. That means decision making will be easy and financing will also be easy.
“The very fact that energy transition is unfolding to everyone, means we must invest in it and we are seeing a great resistance across the globe on funding fossil fuel until the Ukrainian challenge came up,” he said.
Kyari said in every aspect, it was engaging with its partners; the European energy commission and other multilateral institutions that were involved in energy transition.
Kyari, while restating NNPC’s commitment towards improved production said it was time to reset its financing strategies to make sure companies and router institutions collaborated for investment on renewable energy.
He decried the energy deficiency being witnessed in the country, adding that 80 per cent of Nigerians did not have access to clean cooking gas, while 48 per cent did not have access to electricity.
“That gap is huge and we cannot fill it with the scale of investment we are doing in the renewable.
“This is critical for us and we would continue to emphasise that our key role is to be able to bring gas and make it available to everyone, ” he said.
(NAN)
