TheCable

Mele Kyari, group chief executive officer (GCEO), Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited, says the company’s upstream assets may be worth $90 billion.

Kyari said this on Wednesday during a live interview on Arise TV.

On Tuesday, the NNPC Limited officially transitioned into a commercial entity regulated in line with the provisions of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA).

Section 53(1) of the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) requires “the minister of finance to within 18 months of the effective date determine the assets, interests and liabilities of the NNPC to be transferred to the NNPCL” and upon identification, to transfer them to NNPCL.

Kyari said the current asset base to be transferred to NNPCL was being evaluated.

He added that the already-transferred assets totalled $59.8 billion, representing 80 percent of the total assets due to the limited company.

“The assets of the company in a manner that is determined by law in a process that is best practised in the industry, we engage the best evaluating agencies that you can think of to arrive at the value of those assets and ultimately the federation in its wisdom, by the provision of the PIA had transferred assets currently worth $59.8 billion,” he said. 

“This is the first tranche. This is about 80 percent of the assets that are available to us. There is still work going on to clear and have numbers around 20 percent. 

“It means that these assets are on a balance sheet, that you are accountable for it, that you can put it into the market. You can also use it as a basis for securing financing. So that is a very different situation today and not only that. This also excludes the upstream assets”. 

According to him, the country is endowed with oil and gas deposits. 

“We think that when the evaluation is completed, we will probably have access to another $80 to $90 billion worth of upstream assets, and the meaning of this is that NNPC,” he added.

“The meaning of this is that the NNPC will not be below 150 (currently) in the Fortune 500 companies, and I can tell you this upfront: Our target is that by the sheer act of doing things right, we are getting into a business, delivering value and investing appropriately and within three to four years’ time, we should be counting ourselves among the first 50 in the Fortune 500 companies.”

The Fortune 500 is a yearly list of 500 of the largest US companies ranked by total revenues for their fiscal years.

On the contention that the states and local governments are not currently represented on the board of the NNPCL, Kyari said the national assembly which made the law represents every level of government.