Minister-designate and Group Managing Director, GMD, of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, yesterday revealed that the country was about to make a significant discovery of crude oil in the Lake Chad basin in Nigeria’s Northeast.
Dr Kachikwu, who disclosed this in a statement by the NNPC spokesman, Ohi Alegbe, said the cheery news came as a result of the analysis of recent seismic 3D data generated from the Chad basin, noting that a major announcement to this effect could come by the end of 2015.
In a presentation entitled ‘Ongoing Reforms in the Oil Industry: Impact of NNPC Reforms on the Nigerian Economy,’ at the Petroleum Club, Lagos, the NNPC boss stated that the Corporation was injecting a lot of energy into efforts to find oil in the region to ensure success in this regard.
According to him, “There are signs from the latest 3D seismic studies that oil may well be very close to being found now in Lake Chad after very many years of trying. I think that this is very key; it is key both for the geographical balancing of oil production and it is also very key for the purpose of refinery placement in the North in terms of access to crude.
“I am optimistic that by the end of the year we should be able to announce something major on this.”
The NNPC GMD continued that in driving and developing Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, certain key areas of urgent intervention had been identified. One of these areas, he said, includes running production acreages with transparent and profitable partnerships to bridge capacity and funding gaps.
Others are encouraging investment inflow into Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, engagement with local communities and driving regulation to develop the sector income via encouraging the quick passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) to clarify direction and encourage long-term investment in the industry.
Providing specifics on the intervention targets, the Minister-designate stated that the NNPC was projecting the inflow of N20 billion in 2016 to enable the Corporation fund major projects and improve its bottom line going forward.
He described 2016 as a crucial year for the state oil corporation as it was expected to transit from a historic loss environment to a profit making domain.
In the area of engagement with host communities, Kachikwu stated that in the years ahead, the NNPC, as the senior partner in the various Joint Venture arrangements, must take leadership in fostering a healthy and symbiotic host community engagement outlook which must focus on what the communities want the Corporation to do for them as against what the Corporation likes to do.
Speaking about the PIB, the NNPC GMD noted that to achieve quick passage of the bill, “it is crucial to isolate the fiscal regime from the current draft and move quickly to work on other pressing aspects of the proposed oil reform legislation.”
He also reiterated that the Corporation under his watch was rigorously executing a “20 Fixes” project which identified 20 critical issues that need to be addressed in order to reposition the 37-year-old national oil corporation on the track of efficiency and profitability.
He listed the targets to include restructure corporate centre and staffing, renegotiating existing contracts, including Production Sharing Contracts, PSCs, streamlining subsidy management, boosting pipeline security, enhancing transparency and accountability, achieving zero tolerance for corruption, rebranding the NNPC and unbundling the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, PPMC.
Kachikwu further listed other initiatives to include unbundling the Nigerian Gas Company, reducing contracting cycle, restructuring refineries, improving information technology to drive business, embedding staff and business performance management, restructuring JV funding and reducing cash call, improving retail profitability, deploying and attracting focused investments, re-kitting the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, NPDC, expanding crude marketing and generating power profitability.
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