 pcl pledges to produce two million barrels of crude oil daily. I am Gola Orba and this is plus politics. The newly appointed board and management team for the Niger National Petroleum Company Limited, NNPCL, on Monday pledged to produce two million barrels of crude oil daily from 2024. The non-executive board chairman of NNPCL Paeos Akinye Luri stated this while briefing state house correspondents shortly after the inauguration of the board by President Balati Numbu. Mr Akinye Luri also promised that the board would overall the security architecture of the NNPCL to curb incidents of stealing and vandalization of pipelines. The NNPCL Paeos Akinye Luri also promised that the board will overall the security architecture of the NNPCL Paeos Akinye Luri and international oil and gas experts and public affairs analyst Nneka Guli. Gentlemen, welcome to plus politics. Thank you very much. Quite an honor. Nneka, how would you respond to the remark of the newly sworn chair of the board? Can you hear me? I can hear you. I said what would be your response to Chief Akinye Luri's remark. Okay, good evening sir. Good evening my brother. Go ahead. Yes, sorry. Did you put a question to me? Yes, I asked you that what would be your response to Chief Akinye Luri's remark that they will be making, producing two million barrels daily from next year and that they will revamp the security architecture of the oil producing area I guess I meant. So, what would be your response to that? Okay, thank you very much. My response is that the NNPCL Chairman's statement is not clear because the NNPC is a company, is a business that also produces crude oil and Nigeria as a country also produces crude oil by other operators. So, these two million barrels is the NNPC speaking on behalf of the entire oil industry in Nigeria made up of international oil companies like the Chevrons, the Shares, the Mobus, the Totas and indigenous companies or he is speaking only about NNPC of the oil industry in Nigeria. I wonder what is giving him that pedestal to be able to speak on behalf of the oil and gas industry in Nigeria because he is just a board chairman of one company. Somebody listening to you may want to say He is not a board chairman of all the other crew producers in Nigeria. Yes, somebody listening to you may want to say but NNPC is in a peculiar position because NNPC has joint venture relationships with virtually all exploration companies in Nigeria. That makes NNPC to be unique. When it comes to exploration and exploitation of oil in Nigeria. Okay, so for me that is an anomaly in the sense that the NNPC as you have already said is the one managing the joint venture relations with the international oil companies and other indigenous companies that are in partnership with the government of Nigeria. But that is not all of Nigeria's production because there are other production activities in Nigeria that are not under the joint ventures. There are some that are under the production sharing contract arrangements and things like that. So the NNPC chairman cannot be speaking for the oil industry in Nigeria and I think this has been the basis of a problem we have had for a long time. The NNPC is a company and they are expected to run their business profitably and deliver dividends to Nigeria just like their sister company the NLNG is doing. But the NNPC by the current arrangement takes crew production made on behalf of Nigeria by all the other international oil companies says this crude oil and then spends the money the way they like it and it is what is left that they bring to the federation accounts and as we know in recent times NNPC has not been bringing much to the federation account. If President Chinibu wants to reform the oil industry the first thing he needs to do is take the NNPC away from Nigeria's crude oil production the NNPC as a company has its own crude production arm which is called the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company Limited that company is based in Benin their head office is on Sapley Road in Benin and know them very well that is NNPC crude production arm and NNPC should produce their own crude if they don't produce crude and they don't refine anything as they are doing now they should die of hunger this whole idea of carrying crude production arm I come back to you, I come back to you, I come back to you let me give your colleague Barista what would be your response what would be your response to the remark of Chief Akinye Nure? Well you know using mixed expectations considering where we are coming from considering the we call it the opaque approach in dealing with the petroleum and oil and gas sector of this country which has been there from time immemorial from the inception of NNPC to date unfortunately we cannot agree on unagreedly discussed the issue of NNPC audit itself do we really have a record of what NNPC is making then how do we even know that we are not even producing more than 2 million barai a day we don't even have a proper record of what we produced before and I must get to disagree we are equally getting to this quick fix syndrome that once I fit up that once the NNPC said we are producing 2 million barai just one private oil well and oil rig in one in the in the in the data is producing more than what we are talking about what is the aggregate production of all the oil wells that we have we have various oil wells producing at various end how is NNPC managing a license to private owners of oil wells how do we even arrive at the total amount of total oil reserve that we are having which managing it yes we have been specific department that is managing the extraction of all the NNPC itself being having become a private entity by the need to expand the whole responsibility and national position of the country within a private firm because we cannot have a firm that is operating under the the Kamar act as a private limited liability company still operating in national assets using a national asset there must be proper jv as definitely as it comes down to the federal government what is the sole responsibility of the of the board of the directors of NNPCCL what is the rule of the board of NNPC itself being appointed by the president because the board of trustees of the company as the board of companies start to appoint the NNPC chairman that is Mr. K. Yenue is there a resolution there must have been because when all these corporate laws and corporate harm of the company is not being properly situated we don't run in a banana republic approach before the great approach and we have we our country needs to think in the direction of outside the area and all other oil producing country are managing their oil they don't manage oil as said we are selling paper and meat on the roadside we need to have a there is nothing stopping us from having a center point and a high tea center point that will tell how many of our oil how many of tanks living in petrogram at that point who are who is getting the oil who are who is doing the the now we have a lot of smogging going on smogging have not stopped but it's a lot of impendement impendement but i still i believe from the way you are sounding you are sounding quite disillusioned you don't even believe that the environment created for kinyelure irrespective of his experience can make him succeed because you see structural you see structural dysfunctionality in the in the makeup of NNPC you see a person in the in his work ethics and culture you are not quite very pleased am i is my summary right of your position yes yes we are the same page on that there is no clear court um responsibility because we are talking about we have an md of a company in person of yari we have a md of a company in person of yari we also equally have a chairman of his own board and we have to equally note that there is still a legal tozoo about the ownership of the NNPC by some persons who also believe that they have right to determine what goes in and out so we cannot approve it and it will be there is a need to set out a clear court national agenda on our word legal tozoo legal tozoo please enlighten our public i can't just let you work what do you mean by legal tozoo of ownership of NNPC the former chairman the former the former differentiated chairman from imo state you mean not about the ownership you know about his position as we have to we have to look at everything if you don't have a legal in legal position in i can go to court tomorrow and just make an originating someone to to query what is happening in the NNPC because of the current legal positioning and that's why i'm saying you should know better you should know better because you're a lawyer i can argue with you because you're a lawyer but there is a need there is a need for us to for the president to come out with a blueprint of his vision in the oil and gas sector so that will not be cut in the web of money based i found okay okay i'll come back to you i'll come back to you let me go to nick now nick are you there yes i'm here i'm here yes if i thought if i thought your your position was a bit gloomy about NNPC l it does seem that your colleague's position is gloomy and your colleague is even making me believe now that there are structural deformities there are legal issues to look at and one would have thought that president bola met in umbu as an oil man himself with you know with a pedigree in the industry ought to have known better and if they were to be needed for structural reformation and some other governance governance issues instead of taking care of of those ones before appointing his his formal line manager at mobil what's the take of all this okay so the NNPC is a need on the neck of Nigeria's petroleum industry is my god sad but that is the truth nick if you nick you are killing them with the bigger mouth night term no no i will explain i will explain this clearly yes and and if they are listening to us or they happen to come and watch a clip of this interview at any time they have a right to reply and if they want us to sit in a debate we can sit in that debate i worked in the oil industry for over 20 years i have worked for three of the top four global oil companies in Nigeria and overseas so i'm fully abreast with the issues and i know what i'm speaking about and when i say the NNPC is the need on the neck of Nigeria's petroleum industry i mean exactly that and i'll can explain if you think back to the days of night term and telephones night term was the need on the neck of telephones in Nigeria and immediately the government of Nigeria decided to remove that need that is take away telephone business from night term and hand it to serious business concerns like the mts and the haters and the glows you cannot see that the telephone industry in Nigeria is now breathing that same telephone industry that the minister of communication said was not for the poor now the poorest of the poor have their handsets in their hand they may not have a smartphone but at least they have a phone they are communicating with and we now have about 200 million lines of telephone activated in Nigeria we're at united days we're talking about a few hundred thousands so the same thing will happen to the oil industry if president tinibu leaves the need of NNPC off the neck of the petroleum industry in Nigeria and let me tell you the reason number one NNPC has two two businesses that is doing actually three businesses is doing a crude oil production and that is not from the john ventures on the zone as a company is doing refining and is doing gas let us ask ourselves what is NNPC as a business doing in these three business areas crew production like i said npdc which is NNPC crew production and the last time i checked they were doing probably like a hundred thousand barrels a day of this two million we're talking about given the amount and quantum of resources available to the NNPC is that what they are doing that same NNPC has been exploring for crude oil in the northern part of Nigeria since i was born have they produced a single barrel of crude oil from all the efforts and the cost and the billions of dollars sank into exploration in chat in the chat in benway trial in ajak trial in gongola basin not one barrel has been produced as a company would ever have been in existence if not that they are living off the charity of nigerians that is crude nothing from them let's go to refining the NNPC has four refineries in Nigeria as we speak the last time a single liter of petrol came off any refinery was back in 2018 for five years NNPC has produced zero liters of any petroleum product in Nigeria the same NNPC now goes to singapore to rotate them to to to houston all over the world bringing the petrol at expensive rates and forcing it through the torch of nigeria that we say that company is not a need on the neck of nigerians and by NNPC so doing that they are the ones damaging the foreign exchange market in Nigeria because as we speak every liter of petroleum product that is being sold in nigeria will be converted to dollars so that we want import and the NNPC has a lot of four refineries to die when you talk about gas NNPC with the joint venture partners are flaring nigerians gas as we speak go to niger data gas is on fire the gas is what is supposed to have been used for electricity generation nigeria a country of 200 million people is generating a supply 3000 megawatts of electricity 3000 megawatts is why ua e where the president recently came back from he supplied to one million people so if we supply electricity just like ua e we should have been supplied 600 000 megawatts to 200 million people we are supplying 3000 can NNPC be said not to be the need on the neck of nigeria petroleum industry i believe everybody will agree with me okay what would be what would be your suggestion to mr president at this juncture because we can diagnose the problem from here to mongolia but it will be reasonable for us to also treat some ideas on how to rescue or how to remove this nail from the neck of nigerians i agree with you totally that we are nigerians who are already accustomed to all the problems in nigeria so we should be spending time on solutions and the very first solution i will suggest to mr president is the crude oil being produced by the juncture of which the nigerian government has got either 55 percent 50 60 percent share should be taking away from the NNPC that's the first thing he has to say to do either mr president creates a department in the presidency or the federal minister of petroleum resources for which is the minister should be responsible for taking hold taking delivery of the crude being produced by our juncture partners selling it and banking it intact so that mr president will be looking at that money the nNPC has been taking the share of those juncture crude selling it and using it to pay humongous salaries to any nNPC are one of the highest any people in nigeria producing almost nothing refining zero and you're getting promotions in that place so first president does that nNPC will not be left as it sorry go ahead nNPC is the nNPC is now left as a company that they are to swim or to sink so if they don't produce good oil they have no money okay if they don't refine anything we have no money let me go to barista dot let me go to barista dot barista dot was that your your colleague is is prescribing a sink or swim solution for nNPC what would be your angle to this now well the basic thing is that we are willing to look in at the angle of oil as the only prime solution to our economic rules isn't what will begin to decentralize our extractive industry from the constitutional angle down to state let resources of nNPC itself let it go down to real estate that is producing let there be this competition we cannot continue to have nNPC running without having detailed knowledge of where these oil have been produced by the community and other issues that are that are rolling around the the PIA act is there the three percent of the community the oil producing community they are not getting it whatever rules of engagement that the nNPC have drawn all this why we are not seeing anything on the table so the basic thing is that Mr president must come up with a national holistic plan on the oil and gas industry at the at the council of states they need to review and come up with a more amenable solution this um this um militarized section of how we have seen nNPC nNPC to some to many is not a dammed ATM card that they are using to send us so to me the continuous existence of nNPC itself is another truth to our development let us see how resources will be definitely managed by states let us see the resources of all these regions be managed by the my legend be the world contributing certain percentage at that time we'll get a whatever we are to do if i look for a cake if i look so drowning but if you don't go back to the to the to the places this extract if you don't have a national resource management whereby every national resources that we are looking at oil and gas other extract if i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know i know mr zhan you are speaking to an issue that will fundamentally require constitutional amendment but one necessary constitutional amendment in its own is not a matter of resolution at the council of states this is a state they can declare a national measure Nigeria can decide the solution today without us going into the constitutional moods of randy because majorly at the way we are managing the oil and gas we are not even following the dictate of the law we are only trying to drive we are we are managing this with just one myopic um um um interest of who to be at the ends of our face and how the continuity of how things are being done to be continued so if you really need a proper change i believe in the world of experience of mr aki elure he's been in the oil and gas industry for decades you should be able to come up not just to come up with this play statement this play statement of assurance of 200 million has been the same thing we go from biziani has been the same thing we go from um um how the defense will be got that thing from nfpc from time in memoria yet two or two million barrier will be drawn every day but i will not be record on sales so how do we begin to to to talk about what but what but why are we the two of you don't seem to be speaking to to to the high of the bull and the reason why i'm saying that is that the president as at the last time i checked be it under uh basunjo you know for a long while except president yadua and the and the jonathan on the on the worry for eight years and the comment too has continued to coach the president is the substantive minister of petroleum so why are we blaming everybody else and not blaming the principal no we are we are we are we are we are talking the same thing here is that the the the president needs to come up with a solution we are running this oil and gas industry like a paper market which will not be we don't have a national model model let us go and learn i've already said we have a model in saudi arabia that they are already working on and looking for them if it can work for all these nations our oil is now becoming a huge impediment to our good as a nation our oil even for the fact that there is a movement of oil subsidy you can still recall that recently i am ever still telling you know that it should remove subsidy and increase to 750 per liter and let me see how not even with the world regulating price there is nothing no this whole thing if it is being thrown open just like my brother have just rightly said that let the market be open let us create transparency let us have the proper management of resource nick halo nick yes it does seem it does seem that you know your recommendations or your ideas for those ideas to work we need to be talking to a gentleman who is not an ordinary minister but a super duper minister and he also holds the title of the president of the federal republic of nigeria so we are having all these distortions we are having all these are very cheap scenario under a man that cannot be easily criticized are you going to agree with the former the 14th or 16th emir okano uh who is of the opinion that about time the president appointed a substantive minister of petroleum so that uh it could be criticized if there is a need to criticize him and it could be commended if there is need to commend him or how would you respond to that yes the mr president you know it is it is well this um um premium on his capacity and intelligence but there are some certain things he need not consolidate upon that are being made by the the previous administration of president that being the minister of petroleum is an aberration to the office of the president itself because If we need to summon the minister, Mr President, we need to remove his immunity. He cannot begin to vote immunity to strangulate the ministry because there must always be issue. Okay Mr Azad, let me go to your call it now. Nick, are you still there? Yes, I am here. Nick, what would be your take of the suggestion of the former emir of Kano regarding letting somebody that can be accountable to say parliament, the substantive minister? I agree with the former emir of Kano, I agree with him totally. The president holding onto the portfolio of a petroleum minister is unnecessary because every minister in Nigeria is actually doing the president's job. We elected the president, we didn't elect the ministers because the constitution forces the hands of the president as he must appoint ministers and it is indeed the right thing for the president to help people to help him do the job because the job is big. If the president can give the whole of Nigeria's money in the control of the minister of finance, then what is big about the petroleum industry portfolio that he wants to hold on to? Nigeria president is so busy, look at Nigeria president, something a reverse the problem. Meet the traditional rulers, meeting this and that. An American president doesn't do that. I mean there are some governments in America that never ever go to Washington to see the president. No traditional rulers, no crisis in his data. Whoever a man that is so busy, he has only 24 hours and at his age, he just needs to let the portfolio go but even if he holds onto the portfolio. Nigeria has to quickly move to a private sector-led economy. This NNPC that we are talking about, I used to work for the oil industry in Nigeria. I work for children and share in Nigeria and I can assure you that the government participation in the John Ventures was itself a problem because if the John Ventures make a budget, that is the budget that we are going to use to produce X amount of batteries of crude oil, the government hardly finds the money to make their own contribution to that John Ventures funding and the work program and budget for that oil company, that John Ventures operator is more rebound. But if the government lets all these things into the private sector, the private sector will source the funding, they will expand Nigeria's crude oil production and we will not be talking about 2 million barrels. We can be talking about 4 million, 5 million barrels. We have the capacity for that and we even have bigger capacity for gas. Today the NNPC is doing 37. We could by now have fired some more other LNG companies. There is nothing wrong, we have 10 LNGs in Nigeria tapping from our gas resources because the world agrees that gas is a transition fuel and it is something we have in abundance, even much more than crude oil and we should be taking advantage of that and the only way we can take advantage of that is by putting this in the private sector. Let me give you an example before I stop at this point. Have we ever heard that Nigeria produce zero barrels of crude oil any day? Answer is no, since I was born. We only talk about reduced production but it has never gone to zero. What is the reason? The reason is that private sector is the one that is producing crude oil in Nigeria majorly but the downstream business that we have added over to NNPC, the government department, government owned company, zero production, zero refining, nothing. So you can just imagine that if upstream which requires more money and more technical expertise is given to the NNPC but we also come down to zero production of crude oil. I can assure you. So that is a clear indication that the private sector will do it better and it is time for the government to step back as a regulator, look at the industry, reform it. We talked about petroleum industry act. I think that was late in the day. We should have been talking about energy industry act. We were talking about petroleum. They gathered in Dubai and they were saying petroleum as fossil fuels should be phase down. So as a country we should be talking about energy industry bill so that we can have a holistic industry that we tap from renewable sources and fossil fuel sources. These are the kind of things Mr. President needs to be dealing with. Mr. Hazan, I want us to be going in the direction of suggestions now because we will soon be wrapping up the program. From this point what would be the ideas we want to be putting on the table for the president, the board of NNPC and the management of NNPC with a view to culture change and increased transparency were the ones that used to want to pick before. And I guess I was still retreat that the appointment is without no exact machine orders. The appointment is at the critical point of our oil and gas industry because Mr. President, I know he used to go back to his room to review his interest and how to solve the oil and gas problem. It is a multidimensional challenge and it is very one size fit all. We need to come up with an holistic plan of action with immediate accelerated implementation because we always have the good laws we have every policy plan but implement is an issue because of the impediment and the bureaucracy that we are calling we have laid down. The landmines are just there all around the corruption, the cabals. These issues are there. So Mr. President needs to know to be afraid of anything. He is already the president. All we need now is to decentralize that sector give it a life of its own bringing real and happy investors not just all our local politicians just sharing our words to themselves and they don't even have capacity to dream. They will still go and sub-led and have more sub-agreement with administrative companies that is like a double barrage of challenge. You don't give something to who don't have capacity to manage. We have a lot of people in the oil and gas industry that are myopic and know nothing about the entire land. So Mr. President needs to really draw the right channel of people to come in let us have that energy. Lord, don't have my colleague that running said is not just petroleum we are talking about we are talking about the entire resources we are doing the energy sector we need to have a plan we don't want to be on 3000 megawatt as a nation we can man a million megawatt if we really know what we are doing energy sources and petroleum and what president needs to take the importance because the management of the oil and gas industry is an amalgam of over four or three ministries ministry of mines and must be involved ministry of power must be involved this ministry of petroleum has also been involved for tonight for tonight we are addressing NMPCL specifically because of the remark of chief AK Lure so let's keep an eye on the ball no, we are not leaving the region the solution might be very is why they are not beyond Mr. AK Lure is office to just be in charge of that office of NMPCL without looking at the realistic field covering the field if we have to look at the principle of covering the field every department that necessarily needs to be involved in the oil and gas industry must be a measure of force to break these foreign engineers to benefit for us to set a timeline these are not just a dash list that want to run these are things that will take us about a decade to really get right because we are drowning okay, let me go to your colleague Nick yes sir Nick chief AK Lure father said that the security architecture we were reviewed in the backdrop of the fact that I am hiding oil, I am selling of oil no excuse me, excuse me the question is for Nick Nick hello Nick chief AK Lure father said that the security architecture we were reviewed and improved upon I am wondering with security architecture the one that Navy and Tantina every day accuse each other of theft or the one where we know that there are hundreds according to the managing director the group managing director of NMPCL in front of the one of the committees of the national assembly saying that there are more than hundreds of illegal tapping points of the what is the response to the so-called architecture being reviewed and strengthened if the security architecture in the Niger data where we are producing Prudoye is to be reviewed it is not the NMPCL's chairman's remit to announce it for speaker party because he does not control any security apparatus at all he as operator we have to convey his challenges of his security one of them to the appropriate quarters and those quarters are Mr. President so it would have been better for him to be telling Mr. President about his challenges and asking the president to intervene to restore security so that the NMPCL and the other operators in the Niger data can carry out their operations so the way he is speaking I do not know what he thinks his position is look he is a chairman of one of the operators in the oil industry in Nigeria a lot of people think that the NMPCL is like a regulator or the oil industry no the NMPCL is not a regulator or the oil industry NMPCL is not even a spokesperson for the oil industry the NMPCL is a player the regulator is the upstream commission and the downstream authority but the chief is coming across as if he is the the overall percent talking about a million barrels when he is talking about his production gentlemen talking about security when he is talking about security agencies to come in with their security operations gentlemen Mrs. Agule Mrs. Nazan I want to say thank you thank you very much for your virtual presence on the show today we really appreciate you thank you so much we have some other opportunities to engage with your very very very soundly solid minds thank you