Former Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Dr. Emmanuel Ibe-Kachikwu, said in his handover remarks yesterday that the corporation, which he said had never made profit before, made N217 million profit under his watch.
“I am happy to announce that in our May results, for the first time in the history of this company, the NNPC made a profit of N217 million,” he told the gathering at the NNPC Towers while handing over to the new GMD, Dr. Maikanti Kacalla Baru, in Abuja. .
On the production volume that has reduced owing to the vandalisation of oil pipelines by the Niger Delta Avengers, Kachikwu, who remains the chairman of NNPC’s board of directors and Minister of State for Petroleum, said, “We are doing 1.9 million barrels.”
According to him, the Federal Government had been working on bringing an end to the crisis in the Niger Delta.
He added that he was still studying what created the gap in order to further engage the people and bridge the gaps.
He said: “We are working on it and I need to meet with Mr. President for I have just returned and obviously there is a lot more engagement that is required.
“There are gaps that seem to have developed and I need to understand what issues warranted that.
“But we will work towards closing those gaps.”
Asked when Forcados would come back on stream, the minister said by the end of this month.
“By the end of July,” he said.
Kachikwu expressed joy for holding four positions at the same time, stressing that surprisingly, for 11 months, he managed the sector as the GMD of NNPC, Minister of State for Petroleum, President of OPEC and President of APPA before his recent appointment as board chairman.
The minister said: “It is surprising that in the 11 months I’ve managed to serve as GMD of NNPC, as Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, as OPEC President, as the President of APPA and I’ve just been appointed the Chairman of NNPC board; all in 11 months.
“There are not many people in the world who would have those opportunities within that time frame or be given that opportunity by a leader. So we all have the President to be very thankful to.”
Kachikwu however promised to give full support to the new GMD in order to ensure that he succeeds.
He said that there had been very massive restructuring at the NNPC, which had been able to set out various parameters of the business to be profit-focused entities on their own.
On reducing cost, the minister said: “Working with (the Ministry of) Finance, we have been able to cut operational cost close to about 30 per cent, which was one of the first things that we did and it saved a lot of money for the group.
“We undertook deregulation at the time nobody thought it was possible. And if there’s anything we leave for this industry, it must be the legacy of that deregulation.
“Today our consumption of fuel has gone down by 30 per cent. Wwe have no queues in the filling stations.
“We have one and a half months of self sufficiency. We have strategic reserves that we are putting together and we have a funding scheme to enable the downstream to be able to adequately fund itself.
“We have succeeded in removing subsidy and saving over N1.4tn for this country on a yearly basis.
“We have reduced upstream contracting period from the average of between two and a half years to between six and nine months, and we have started a massive commercialisation of every aspect of our business.
“Refineries have challenges but we have been able to take them to a point where the three refineries are working for the first time in about 10 years, but still not at the capacity that we want.
“We need to find a structure, and we have started, in which private funds will go into the refineries and we will be able to rebuild our refineries to 90 or 100 per cent capacity.
“I’ve already made a commitment that by 2018, 60 per cent of refined products importation will stop, and by 2019, we must become a net exporter of refined petroleum products.”
