By Adedapo Adesanya
The Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, Mr Mele Kyari, said that the anticipated public listing of the company’s shares at the stock market, the Nigerian Exchange (NGX) Limited, as provided for in the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), will happen very soon.
Mr Kyari disclosed this while participating at the ongoing 2024 CERAWEEK in Houston, United States.
He noted that the NNPC would become a quoted company in line with the PIA, with some of the national oil company’s shares to be divested.
During a fireside chat at the event, Mr Kyari said NNPC had experienced transformation owing to the reform process triggered by the PIA and has moved away from a government-owned corporation to a limited liability company that is now a commercial and profit-making company.
He explained that in the past, the company was a corporation owned by the government but wasn’t a commercial company and that the organisation needed to move away from that situation to a reform process that converted it to a full limited liability company.
“Today, the shareholders are largely the overall population of the country, very understandable, but it’s transiting to a situation where you can have other people owning an interest in the company. What we did was to create a company that must pay taxes, pay royalties and also, in the end, provide dividends to its shareholders.
“This is not a money-losing business, and the oil and gas industry in Nigeria has matured to the extent that any company operating, not just us, can break even and make benefits.
“Therefore, what happened today is that you have a national commercial oil company, which has progressed from a loss-making company to now a profit-making company that is not just providing dividends to its shareholders.
“It is creating value for its stakeholders and its partners, including some international oil companies and some local oil companies in a beneficial manner.“
He insisted that the law had made NNPC become a “fully commercial company that can migrate to a quoted company because it is clearly in the law establishing this company.”
The NNPC helmsman further explained that the reform process backed by law, which is the PIA, provided a pathway to getting NNPC quoted so that others could buy shares.
“So, it does create that opportunity. It never existed in the past, and therefore, ultimately, at maturity, this company’s shares will be owned by others,” he said.
On the exact date to get NNPC quoted, Mr Kyari said: “The law anticipates three years of incorporation of the company. You can start the process and therefore, it is within sight”.
He said NNPC, which is the largest oil and gas company in Africa as well as the largest corporate entity in the continent is very critical to Nigeria’s resource management and resource funding.
He also said because of NNPC’s strategic importance in the country, everything done in Nigeria has a lot of connection with what happens in the company.
Dipo Olowookere