Nigerian state-owned oil giant in the red
06 Mar 2010
Nigeria's minister for petroleum resources Dr Rilwanu Lukman has called for reorganisation of the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), saying that the company is running at a loss of more than $1.33 billion with contingent liabilities of more than $1.25 billion.
In his address the unveiling ceremony of the transformation agenda of the corporation at the NNPC Towers yesterday, Lukman warned that ithe trend is not reversed, the corporation as you know it today, will cease to exist.
He cautioned that the next 18 months would be ''critical and indeed the most challenging period'' in the history of the NNPC and the world's eight largest oil producer.
For stabilising the organisation we need to take some strong and drastic decisions, the minister said.
''It is necessary to work together as a team. We cannot afford to allow this transformation to fail because the transformation of NNPC is the linchpin of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB),'' the minister said.
''Without NNPC's transformation, the vision and aspirations behind the PIB will remain a theoretical construct. More broadly, without NNPC's transformation, there can be no energy sector,'' he added.
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