On Thursday August 26, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari in a statement that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) made a profit of 鈧287 billion in 2020.
The President claimed that it was the first time the NNPC was declaring a profit since it was established on April 1, 1977.
While there are that the President’s claim is false, it doesn’t take away the fact that the NNPC itself is a very important corporation 鈥 that made a ton of money in 2020.
How NNPC Works
The NNPC is responsible for carrying out commercial activities in oil and gas in Nigeria for the government of Nigeria. This is according to the preamble of the .
This means that the NNPC looks for crude oil, refines crude oil, buys and sells petroleum and other petroleum products, operates pipelines for the transportation of natural gas and does all other activities related to oil and gas in Nigeria, for the government of Nigeria.
Basically, the NNPC is Nigeria’s oil company.
NNPC Leadership
Currently, The 狈狈笔颁鈥檚 Group Managing Director is Mallam Mele Kyari. He was by President Muhammadu Buhari on July 7, 2019.
Mr Mele Kyari replaced Maikanti Baru as NNPC GMD. Maikanti Baru as the Group Managing Director of the NNPC from July 2016 to July 2019.
狈狈笔颁鈥檚 for exploring crude oil or 鈥渦pstream鈥 activities is Adokiye Tombomeiye. The Group Executive Director for Gas and Power is AbdulKabir M. Ahmed and the Group Executive Director for petroleum refining is Mustapha Y. Yakubu.
The NNPC Group Executive Director for selling petroleum products or 鈥渄ownstream鈥 activities is Adeyemi Adetunji, and the Group Executive Director for Finance and Accounts is Umar I. Ajiya.
Aisha Ahmadu Katagum is the 狈狈笔颁鈥檚 Group Executive Director for Corporate Services and Hadiza Y. Coomasie is the 狈狈笔颁鈥檚 Secretary and Legal Adviser.
You can read more about the management of the NNPC .
Financial Accounts of the NNPC
Since 1977, the NNPC has been inconsistent with opening its account and disclosing whether it was making a profit or not. It wasn鈥檛 until October 2015 that the corporation that it would commit to making its financial account public.
Since then, we鈥檝e been privy to information like the 狈狈笔颁鈥檚 鈧308 billion loss in 2018 and 鈧1.7 billion loss in 2019.
You can read more about the 狈狈笔颁鈥檚 audited account of 2020 .
鈥淣NPC Limited鈥
On August 20, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari signed a new Petroleum Industry Act that will regulate oil and gas operations in Nigeria.
Under this new act, the NNPC will be replaced by “NNPC Limited”. NNPC Limited must make a profit and its shares can be sold to Nigerians through an open and transparent process 鈥 like at the Nigerian stock exchange.
With this new law, the NNPC should perform better, and it should start declaring profits as a company engaging in oil and gas activities on behalf of Nigeria.
But things may just remain the same. After all, this is Nigeria.
