Americas Energy Summit: NUIMS Assures Investors Of Transparent Bidding Process With NipeX Platform

NEW ORLEANS: The NNPC Upstream Investment Management Services (NUIMS) has said that it hopes to reinstate investors’ confidence in the Nigerian oil and gas sector by showcasing its Nigerian Petroleum Exchange (NipeX) platform.

NipeX is an electronic transaction centre that improves the value of the procurement process in the oil and gas industry.

NUIMS said on Wednesday at the Americas Energy Summit and Exhibition, attended by THE WHISTLER that its aim is to educate foreign investors at the summit about the improvement in transparency of the bidding process for oil and gas contracts.

Speaking to THE WHISTLER at the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd exhibition stand, the Deputy Manager JV Assets B4, Engr. Jude Onah explained, “We will be happy knowing that we have disabused anybody’s mind as to whatever wrong impression they must have had in the past and be able to educate them further and give them the confidence that they need to do business more with our people.

“We are promoting NipeX. If you think back to where we are coming from, contracting was done manually. There were lots of human interference and subjectivities and the coming of NipeX eliminated almost all this.

“It is almost not available that you can interfere with our process. The documents are now intact and verifiable. You can always refer to them years after the tender is completed. There has been a lot of controversies around the transparency of procurement process. We are here to promote the platform to show the people who are interested that it is very transparent, especially those that far.”

Onah said NUIMS which is the investment arm of the NNPC Limited is working towards cost optimisation.

According to him, the NNPCL targets production cost of $17 per barrel adding that it is the only way the company can survive in the fluctuating oil price.

He said, “One of the key enablers is contracting efficient, effective and transparent contractors that will give us our contract within a maximum of six months. This is the only platform that has been pushing us towards that. We are not totally there, but we are almost there.

“The target this year is to beat that six months contracting timeline in a very transparent and efficient manner to show the world for those who are doing business and for those who want to do business with us, especially those here that have partners in Nigeria that get misinformed as to what we do to know that this is where we are and what it is.”

Omitayo Ajisafe, finance and account NipeX NIUMS told THE WHISTLER that the NipeX has a periodical updating which allows for categorisation.

She said, “In the past everybody can just bid for what they are not an expert in. But with categorisation, if you are not part of that category, you cannot even go there. That is part of the checks we do in NipeX, everything is done online you do not need a human interface before you can bid.”

Omolabaje Bakare Customer relation and marketing, NipEx NUIMS said investors are assured of a more transparent contract process in the oil and gas sector.