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THERE were indications, yesterday, that the unveiling of the new Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, would position the company to make more positive impact on the energy industry, Nigeria and shareholders.

Until Tuesday, July 19, 2022, the corporation was one of the biggest state-owned oil and gas entity in Africa, but highly attached to the Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the Presidency.

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Checks by Vanguard showed that the corporation also had a structure, which depended on government funding, thus making it less competitive, compared to its counterparts, especially Saudi Arabia’s Aramco and Petrobras of Brazil.

Consequently, this grossly reduced its capacity to attract much funds and global investors to stake their resources in Nigeria’s energy industry.

It further showed that, to a great extent, many investors, especially the International Oil Companies, IOCs, were not very comfortable transacting businesses, including new projects and programmes, with the old NNPC, due to fears over undue government interference, inconsistency and delays associated with state bureaucracies.

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Although the corporation, under the leadership of Mele Kyari, has done its best to open its official books and records for public scrutiny through the publication of monthly reports, the operational environment was still not right for it to operate like its peers in other nations.

Positioning for impact

However, with the unveiling of the NNPC Limited as a commercially-driven company, which is in line with the nation’s Petroleum Industry Act, PIA, and the Companies and Allied Matters Act, CAMA, industry leaders, noted in different interviews with Vanguard that NNPC Limited, has been positioned to become a ‘dynamic global energy company with businesses and operations across the entire spectrum of the energy value chain.’

It’s new beginning for NNPC —Prof Iledare

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In an interview with Vanguard, yesterday, Professor Emeritus in Petroleum Economics and Executive Director, Emmanuel Egbogah Foundation, Wunmi Iledare, said: “It is a new beginning for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.

‘’However, this is not the first time, the federal government attempts to reform, re-brand, rekindle and restructure the NNPC. Everything started from Petroleum Inspectorate in the 1960s, then the Nigerian National Oil Corporation, NNOC was created in the early 1970s.”

The institution, NNPC came into being in 1977 with NNPC Act via PIA 2021 and NNPC Limited emerges in 2022.”

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He said: “That the immediate past NNPC played too much of agency role than NNOC is an understatement, hence the commercialisation intent of PIA 2022 by the framers. The process actually started in earnest in 2000. But for some reasons, it did not work. But, it is better to be late than never.“

(Vanguard)