Kachikwu launches ‘war room’ to stop ‘bleeding’ at NNPC

Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources and group managing director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), has inaugurated a strategic war room to stop bleeding at NNPC.

Kachikwu said the corporation was employing some pragmatic measures to reduce cost and restructure the corporate centre of the NNPC.

He stated that the various business models of the corporation were undergoing a radical transformation in order to make it remain a business concern in the face of global dip in crude oil prices.

“The restructuring war room is aimed at expeditiously monitoring and tracking the transformation journey of the corporation, with a vision to deliver a different NNPC with a different mindset of efficiency and profitability,” he said.

According to him, the corporation would navigate on a war zone in the next six months stressing that the management would deploy the right skills at the right locations for all operations.

Presenting a paper on the transformation journey of the NNPC titled: ‘Stop the bleeding, shine the light: Accelerating NNPC’s restructuring’, Kachikwu, who was represented by Yemi Adetunji , senior technical assistant to the GMD, said the restructuring process would urgently address challenges confronting all the strategic business units and corporate service units of the NNPC.

He highlighted that the process would lead to renegotiation of existing contracts, including production sharing contracts, strengthen subsidy management, boost pipeline security and enhance transparency and accountability.

Danladi Inuwa, acting group general manager information and technology division, said information technology would play a critical role in the transformation journey of the state-owned firm.

Ladipo Fagbola, a managing director, said that the company was poised to expand its operations all through the 774 local government areas of the country.

The corporation is currently executing “20 Fixes” project, which identified 20 critical issues that need to be addressed in order to re-position the 37 years old national oil corporation.

NNPC recorded a loss of N172bn in the past three months, mainly to subsidy and refinery management.