AHEAD of the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) by the National Assembly to guide operations in the nation’s oil sector, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has begun an initiative to reposition itself to be competitive in line with global trends.
The main thrust of the plan is to unbundle the corporation into profitable business units with value addition through new products’ creation to compete favourably with other national oil companies (NOCs ) on the one hand and international oil companies ( IOCs) doing business in the country on the other hand.
The development is coming on the heels of the recent appointment of Hajia Aisha Mata Abdurahaman as the first female Group Executive Director (GED) of the NNPC’s Business Development Directorate by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison- Madueke with the mandate to prepare the corporation for optimisation, value addition and competitiveness.
Just three months into office, the business development directorate has begun action with a target of delivering on this mandate in a short time.
Already, consultants, amongst them, MCkinsey, have been contracted to drive the transformation, beginning with the re-orientation of the corporation’s business development directorate to prepare them for the task in line with the new business requirement.
Accordingly, a two-day workshop was organised by the directorate for staff at the weekend in Abuja where the new NNPC’s vision was unveiled to them as part of measures to prepare them for the optimisation.
Speaking at the retreat with the theme “Value creation, an optimum to business development,” the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Andrew Yakubu, explained that the plan was aimed at repositioning the NNPC to consolidate on gains of the transformation programme in terms of improved processes and business transaction.
He gave reasons why the corporation was embarking on optimisation: “Today, the NNPC faces an array of unique challenges as a result of the tremendous change occasioned by the development of shale oil and gas resources in the USA with attendant decline in imports of Nigerian crude. Within the African continent, we are also witnessing increasing competitive threats, as traditional producers like Angola are ramping up production and new oil producers , namely, Ghana, Ethiopia , Kenya, Uganda , Tanzania and Mozambique have entered the market. Onshore exploration activities are also ongoing in Senegal, Gabon and other African markets.”
Yakubu continued: “Given this development, oil and gas companies (IOCs and NOCs) are strategically repositioning themselves to face these challenges and take advantage of emerging opportunities for growth. The rapidly changing environment has forced a rethink and re-assessment of the traditional business models particularly at NOCs, necessitating many of them to diversify their business operations and portfolios and reposition themselves to take advantage of the opportunities offered by these changes.
“Over the years, we have evolved our exploration and production business and ventured into the entire spectrum of downstream activities to add value to our petroleum resources. Today, our business activities span exploration and production, gas and power, refining and petrochemicals, trading and retailing as well as shipping and logistics. However, our operations are yet to attain the reach of other national oil companies such as Petronas, petrobas or even Sanangol, in terms of size and geographical spread.
“For NNPC to realise its vision of becoming a world class oil and gas company, in line with our transformation roadmap which includes the right to play in the global scene, a strong business development capability must be a top and strategic priority. To achieve this, our business development functions must be strengthened to leverage on existing assets and create alliances for NNPC. To this extent, it is essential that we create within the corporation a high level of interaction, synergy and seamless relationship between the business development directorate and other directorates. Whilst the business development directorate must take leading roles in identifying and exploring new opportunities for the organisation, a shared value strategy must underpin our growth aspirations.”
On her part, Abdruhaman expressed optimism that the NNPC would soon become the envy of other national oil companies at the end of the optimisation and called for the cooperation of other directorates to deliver on the mandate.
The highlights of the retreat were a presentation by a representative of Mckinsey on the roadmap and an insightful intervention by the Group Executive Director, Engineering and Technology of the NNPC, Adebayo Ibrogba, who expressed his directorate’s preparedness to partner the Business Development Directorate to ensure that greater value was created for the NNPC from its primary crude oil product so as to address the country’s development challenges.
To him, such challenges include unemployment for the youths and the billions of foreign exchange spent on the importation of goods that can be manufactured locally from the derivative of crude.
Source: Guardian
