Senate moves to address NNPC’s frontier exploration funding challenges

The Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) has commended the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) for repositioning the Nigerian oil and gas industry into a competitive business environment.

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Bassey Albert Akpan, gave the commendation when he led members of the Committee on an oversight visit to the NNPC Towers, Abuja, recently.

He said the Committee would look into the issue of funding for frontier exploration in order to ensure that the objective of boosting exploration and production in frontier basins in the next five years is met.

Senator Akpan said the visit offered the lawmakers the opportunity to have firsthand information about Management’s actions in transitioning from a Corporation into a limited liability company in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

“We commend the effort of Mallam Mele Kyari and his team towards repositioning NNPC post-PIA. We’ve been told about the challenges, the expectations, projections and visions for NNPC. We are very impressed that the effort of the National Assembly in passing the PIA is yielding positive outcomes,” Senator Akpan said.

Earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Ltd, Mallam Mele Kyari, informed the lawmakers that the Company is well primed to meet the growth trajectory envisaged in the PIA, stressing that it has received very positive commercial assurances from investors and partners across the globe.

Nigeria’s anticipation to further grow its crude production is being stalled by delay in realising development of Bonga field by Shell.