NNPC: Mele Kyari On The Right Foot

Leadership can make a huge difference in the life of any organization or country. This is certainly the case with Nigeria and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). On October 17, 2019, it was only 100 days since Mele Kolo Kyari became the 19th Group Managing Director of the NNPC and it already feels as if he’s been around for longer period.

So much progress seemed to have happened within so short a time and many must be wondering whether President Muhammadu Buhari gave the GMD some marching orders and targets of achievement.

Buhari appointed Kyari to take over from Maikanti Baru as NNPC GMD after the latter clocked the statutory 60 years retirement age on July 7, 2019. Since Kyari took over the helms of affairs of the NNPC, the corporation and the oil and gas industry at large have witnessed a number of reforms.

When the 54-year-old came on board, he made it top on his priorities to ensure corruption, bribery and racketeering were eliminated from the major challenges of the NNPC. He was focused on turning the corporation into an oil giant reputed for Transparency, Accountability, Performance and Excellence (TAPE).

Kyari had also assured that the TAPE will help stimulate the corporation’s staff to raise crude oil production to 3 million barrels per day and reserves to 40 billion barrels by 2023.

Of particular note is also the relationship that had developed between the GMD and the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva. The two have formed a positive partnership to ensure a boost in the oil and gas industry.

Two months after assuming office, Kyari kick-started his plans to bring sweeping reforms to the Corporation with at least 15 redeployment of managers from the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, (NPDC), in an effort to improve transparency operational efficiency.

To further deepen the culture of transparency and accountability in the system with the support of sylva, the GMD led the cooperation on a public publication of all petroleum products supply transactions in the country.

Whether by design or fate, the NNPC found crude oil in the north under the leadership of Kyari on 11, October, 2019, thereby breaking the myth that crude oil deposits can never be found in the north. But the corporation under his watch discovered hydrocarbon deposits in the Kolmani River II Well on the Upper Benue Trough, Gongola Basin, in Bauchi state.

Within this period also, the NNPC under Kyari and in partnership with Sylvia amicably ended a long-lasting dispute which had prevented crude oil production in Akuku Toru community of Rivers State for over two years. That singular action would ensure smooth operation of Oil Mining Lease (OML) 25 flow station and the return of about 35,000 barrels of oil production per day.

The Borno state born geophysicist had also led the NNPC into signing of a $2.5bn pre-payment agreement with the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas company for upstream gas development projects to supply gas to the NLNG Trains 1 to 6.

In recognition of NNPC’s determination to stop the smuggling of petroleum products by some corrupt operators,  Sylva commended Kyari, and his management team for coming up with the Operation White initiative.

“I must say that I am very impressed with the caliber of the team members of ‘Operation White’ and am not surprised because every organization that I know is as strong as its leadership. The NNPC under the leadership of Mallam Kyari epitomizes strong leadership. Am happy with the enthusiasm on the faces of the members and I am sure that we will succeed,” said Sylva.

The NNPC boss has also secured a deal with China that would improve rehabilitation of our refineries and downstream infrastructure including pipelines and deliver the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project come 2022. This was secured through a 15% ownership of financing the deal with china.

In an interview with the Bloomberg news in Dubai, the GMD hinted that the corporation was expecting 85% deal-closure from china, which is about $2.5bn, in a maximum of 6 months.

He also noted that the contractor-finance scheme of the pipeline project will deliver 2bn cubic of gas and help support at least 3 power plants with a combined capacity of 3600MW of power, which he said is very significant in the context of capacity.

Meanwhile, several organizations including the Media Initiative for Transparency in Extractive Industries (MITEI) have said based on the vision, passion, patriotism, commitment and most importantly the results the GMD has been able to bring forth so far, they were sure the industry was set for better times.

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.