FG will overhaul NNPC operations next week, says Kachikwu

The Federal Government will carry out a major overhaul of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation next week, the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director, NNPC, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has said.

According to him, the government has started resolving the governance issues in the oil and gas sector as well as at the NNPC, adding that the planned overhaul in the national oil firm had never happened at the corporation in the past 20 years.

Kachikwu disclosed this at the Shell Production and Exploration Oloibiri Lecture Series that was held in Abuja on today.

Explaining the restructuring exercise by the Federal Government in the oil sector, the minister said, “We are starting first with simple governance issues, those that are not contentious…, that are very rapid and that deals a lot with the transformation of the national oil company.

“For the national oil company, a lot of work is going on, I am sure some of you have seen the effects but within the next one week, we are going to be announcing some really major overhaul of the system, one that hasn’t been done in over 20 years.

“The effect of that would be to quite frankly unbundle the huge company into four to five main operational zones; the upstream, downstream, midstream, refining and, of course, every other company that is trending to the venture group.”