NNPC

By Sabiu Abdullahi

The Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Limited have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen their partnership in the fight against fuel smuggling.

According to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Adewale Adeniyi, the collaboration aims to tackle the smuggling of petroleum products outside Nigeria, which constitutes a significant burden on the national economy. 

Adeniyi noted that the price difference between Nigeria and neighboring countries creates a huge incentive for smuggling, but the NCS, through ‘Operation Whirlwind,’ is working to minimize the smuggling of Premium Motor Spirits (PMS).

He highlighted the successes of the operation, including fantastic seizures and the arrest of perpetrators. 

The Coordinator of ‘Operation Whirlwind,’ Comptroller Hussein Ejibunu, reported that the operation has recorded significant victories across the nation, including the interception of 79,000 liters of fuel in Kebbi State. 

Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer of NNPC Limited, acknowledged the smuggling of PMS as a major national challenge and sought the Customs’ assistance in minimising the smuggling of PMS outside Nigeria.

He commended the efforts of ‘Operation Whirlwind’ and offered NNPC’s support to combat the crime. Both agencies have agreed to share intelligence and resources to enhance their capacity and motivation to tackle fuel smuggling.

The collaboration aims to create a situation room for data sharing and to ensure the prosecution of arrested perpetrators.

By Muhammadu Sabiu 

Seven private depots were closed by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) for selling gasoline above the N148 per litre permitted by the federal government.

Independent petroleum marketers had complained in recent months that they were purchasing the product from private depots for more than N200 per litre, making it impossible for them to sell the commodity at the government-approved price.

The Authority’s Chief Executive, Engr. Farouk Ahmed, said the depots would be closed until a decision was made on how to proceed while speaking to journalists on New Year’s Eve in Abuja.

Among the companies, he identified were Ardova, Rainoil, TCL, Bluefin, and NEPAL.

According to Engr. Ahmed, two of the depots are in Lagos, two are in Warri, one is each in Oghara, Port Harcourt, and Calabar.

He reassured customers that the closure would not affect the availability of petrol around the nation, stating that there would be enough fuel for about 30 days.

He said that in an effort to lessen fuel shortages, the authority had many discussions with marketers on how to address supply issues that operators were having.

He also noted that certain privately operated depots were found to continue loading the commodity above the government-approved price, despite having obtained the cargo under favourable circumstances.

By: Ibrahiym A. El-Caleel

British multinational oil corporation, Shell is set to wear a new face of leadership effective 1st January, 2023.This was highlighted by the corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ben van Beurden.

Beurden, a Chemical Engineer and Dutch national announced the development through his LinkedIn page earlier today.

“After a great 39-year career at Shell, I’ll step down as Chief Executive Officer at the end of 2022. Wael Sawan, currently Integrated Gas, Renewables & Energy Solutions Director, will take over from 1 January 2023.”, he said.

While wishing the incoming CEO the best term in office, Beurden remarked that he has great confidence in Wael as his successor. “He is a principled and dynamic leader, who I know will continue to help deliver our #PoweringProgress strategy purposefully and profitably.”, he said in the statement.

Shell is one of the oil multinational corporations involved in the exploration of oil in Nigeria. The company has been working in Nigeria since 1937, and currently has the largest footprint of all the international oil and gas companies in Nigeria.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

Nigeria’s former vice president and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said the Buhari-led government had adopted his proposal to rebrand the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC

Atiku disclosed this in a post he made on his verified Facebook page on Wednesday, July 20, 2022. He said he is happy the decision was taken, but there is still more to be done to make the NNPC a world-class company.

“I had in 2018 made public my plans to reform the NNPC to make it more profitable, transparent and efficient. The APC-led government denigrated me for my patriotic vision. But today, I am happy to note that the same government has taken a tentative step along the lines of the suggestions that I had made. It is a step in the right direction, but we are still far from what I had envisaged. I hope I’ll have the opportunity to complete the process of turning the NNPC into a genuinely world-class company in the mould of NLNG, Aramco of Saudi Arabia and Petrobras of Brazil, where Nigerians and institutions will invest in. ” Atiku posted 

 Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari, in a televised programme on Tuesday, officially unveiled the rebranding and commercialization of the NNPC.

By Uzair Adam Imam 

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is not recruiting, the General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr Garbadeen Muhammad, said.

The General Manager made the declaration public in a statement issued in Abuja by the management. 

In the statement, Muhammad urged the general public to discard the rumour in the air that the company was recruiting. 

He reiterated that the information suggesting that NNPC Ltd. was recruiting was false and baseless. 

He stated, “the general public should please take note that NNPC Ltd. is not recruiting.

The statement noted that the NNPC has an official website to make announcements whenever the company intends to recruit. 

The official websites were identified as “(www.nnpcgroup.com); verified Twitter handle (@nnpcgroup); verified Facebook page (@nnpcgroup) and other credible media channels,” he stated.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

Hours after meeting President Muhammad Buhari, GCFR at the State House, Abuja, the outgoing Secretary General of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo has passed away.

Mele Kyari, the NNPC GMD, announced Barkindo’s demise in the early hours of Wednesday .

“We lost our esteemed Dr Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo. He died at about 11pm yesterday 5th July 2022. Certainly a great loss to his immediate family, the NNPC, our country Nigeria, the OPEC and the global energy community. Burial arrangements will be announced shortly.” Mr Kyari tweeted.

Barkindo who was received by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House on Tuesday died at the age of 63. The president had described him as a worthy ambassador of Nigeria during Barkindo’s visit to the State House

Barkindo was appointed as OPEC Secretary General in 2016 and his tenure comes to an end on July 31.

By Farid Suleiman

The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has revealed that from January to date, Nigeria has lost a total of N623BN worth of crude oil to the activities of oil vandals and operators of illegal refineries.

Reports indicate that the GMD  made the revelation when he appeared before the House of Representative committee on petroleum (upstream) that invited him to ascertain the cause of Nigeria’s low crude oil output.

Kyari said oil thieves steal an average of 250,000 barrels per day. This situation has limited Nigeria’s crude oil output to only 1.49 million barrels per day, against its OPEC quota of 1.753 million barrels per day.

“What is going on has nothing to do with the PIA. It is purely an act of thieves; acts of vandals which have rendered the industry unworkable and taken us to the level where today, our production is around 1.49 million barrels per day.”

“When you lose about 200,000 barrels per day, even at an average price of 65 dollars per barrel, we lost close to 1 billion dollars between January and March. 

“From January to date, we lost an average of 250,000 barrels per day, and at the current price of about 100 dollars to the barrel, even within this short period, we have lost close to 1.5 billion dollars.

“This situation deteriorated to the extent that by March 7, 2022, it came to zero, and so, we shut down the line and declared force majeure. Even on our most reliable pipeline, which is the Forcados pipeline, we still lose about 7000 barrels per day. Needless to say that this is all coming as a result of the acts of vandals and oil thieves,” he said.

However, the GMB assured the lawmakers that massive joint security operations among agencies were ongoing to address the situation.

By Kabir Fagge Ali
 
Presently, it is obvious that the time is ripe for the oil producing countries to smile due to the unprecedented increase in the oil price which eventually signalled an opportunity for a windfall. However, the situation is not the same for Nigeria as the country has plunged into deep fuel crises that has remained persistent for over a month. These crises border mostly on adulteration of the Premium Motor Spirits, PMS, also known as petrol, as well as its corresponding scarcity across the nation.

It can be recalled that, in the last three weeks, Russia has authorized a special military operation by invading the neighbouring Ukraine which caused the usually volatile crude oil prices to skyrocket beyond bookmakers. As a result, many countries are counting their fortunes in the windfall but unfortunately, Nigeria is counting its losses due to mismanagement of resources by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

From the opening crude oil price of $76.03 per barrel at the beginning of 2022, prices have jumped to about $130 per barrel which is the highest price of the commodity for the last decade.

Just as noted in the Daily Trust Editorial of March 14, 2022, the gloom for Nigeria in the era of increased commodity prices was first forecasted by the world bank country director for Nigerian, Shubham Chaudhuri who said in January that Nigeria is at a point where rising oil prices might not be a good thing because although oil production might go up and crude oil revenue may increase, which in some point is a good thing.

The fiscal cost of petrol subsidy will also rise and while other countries may rejoice from the windfall, Nigeria will on the other hand be at the receiving end by reaping what it sows, courtesy of mismanagement of the oil sector over the past years by the NNPC. 

Truth be told, the consequences of the mismanagement of Nigeria’s four refineries is that the 440,000 barrels of crude oil supplied to NNPC daily for local refining is exported and never transparently accounted for. 

Meanwhile, the Group Managing Director, GMD, NNPC Mele Kyari claimed that N100 billion was sunk into the maintenance of the four refineries in Nigeria which is quite different from the N26bn already spent on supposed Turn Around Maintenance (TAM) on the maintenance of the refineries over the years which is an amount that will be sufficiently enough to build three new refineries as argued by many experts.

In addition, it is disheartening to learn that apart from being fleeced by NNPC and its collaborators in the name of oil subsidy or the strange term ‘under-recovery,’ Nigeria has failed to meet its oil production quota allocated by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). From an average of 2.1 million crude oil production quota per day, when the Buhari administration was voted into power in 2015, Nigeria is at present allocated 1.7 million per day, out of which it produces between 1.3 million and 1.4 million per day. This shortfall is a result of the lack of investment, as International Oil Companies (IOCs) have continued to exit Nigeria’s oil sector.

Despite the above scenario, the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, NNPC and its subsidiaries cannot convince Nigerians that there will be no gains from the current oil windfall. Such gains must not be frittered away under any guise.

The real question that is still begging for an answer is, can the NNPC convince Nigerians on how the country’s economy is not going to gain from this kind of oil windfall or how are Nigerian leaders being able to resolve this issue and what is NNPC’s decision on the lack of accountability to the people? 

Therefore, it is in the good interest of Nigerians that the National Assembly should investigate this issue thoroughly and ensures that money meant for the country indeed comes into the nation’s treasury unfailingly. The managers of Nigeria’s oil and gas sector must account for the gains that accrue to Nigeria from the current windfall.

Moreover, the NNPC in collaboration with the federal government and other stakeholders in the oil sector must as a matter of urgency expedite their efforts in fixing the moribund refineries in order to be functional enough to refine our petroleum products so as to meet the nation’s daily average consumption capacity of 62.5million litres of petrol. The time is long overdue to save the country’s ailing oil sector!

Fagge, is a student of Mass Communication Department, Skyline University Nigeria. He writes from Abuja, Nigerian and can be reached via faggekabir29@gmail.com

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Coalition of Concerned Northern Forum (CCNF)  has threatened to occupy all NNPC zonal offices and its subsidiaries if the current persistent issue of fuel scarcity is not being solved.

The group has also called on the NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Mele Kolo Kyari and Engr. Farouk Ahmed, the Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (MDPRA), to resign.

They added that these people should tender their resignation within 72 hours over the persistent fuel scarcity in the country and their inability to solve the issue.

A statement jointly signed by the group’s chairman and the spokesman, Mallam Ibrahim Bature and Comrade Abdulsalam Moh’d Kazeem, respectively, disclosed.

The group also demanded that the NNPC management should make public genuine and comprehensive names of those involved in the current scarcity of petroleum products all over the country.

The statement reads: “if our demands are not met in the next three (3) working days, we shall occupy all NNPC zonal offices and its subsidiaries across our region and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

“The mistake made by NNPC under the current management has caused us a lot as a nation; for instance, they claimed it will cost our nation over N200 billion to mop up and sanitize the adulterated fuel, and at the same time, we don’t have enough facilities, so they will have to evacuate the bad products first before we can have access to the new products.

“As at today, the said products have already damaged many automobiles, generators, machines and other sundry equipment of citizenry nationwide.”

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) assured to have over 1.7 billion litres of petrol in stock, thereby making it unnecessary for the citizens to fear fuel scarcity.

This was made public in a release signed by the NNPC spokesperson, Garba Deen Muhammad stating that it is unnecessary to entertain any fear of scarcity of petrol throughout the festive season and beyond.

“The general public is hereby advised not to engage in panic buying of Premium Motor Spirit, more commonly known as petrol.

“The NNPC has over 1.7 billion litres of petrol in stock, and more product is expected to arrive into the country daily over the coming weeks and months”, the national oil company said in a statement on Monday,” the statement added.

However, the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) also added that: “The NNPC is advising motorists and other consumers of petrol to maintain their regular pattern of the purchase of petrol without getting into a panic situation that may send the wrong signals around the country.

“The NNPC is also engaging all stakeholders to ensure smooth supply and distribution of products to every part of the country during the festive season and beyond.”