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Although the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) has remained a loss-making entity for decades, the Chief Executive Officer, Mele Kyari, said the company is now striving to become the most profitable company in Africa.
While Dangote Cement with market valuation and profit after tax of N4.35 trillion and N278 billion, respectively, in the first nine months of 2021 is regarded as the most profitable company in Nigeria while Naspers of South Africa with revenue of $22.1 billion and equity of $29.93 billion is regarded as most profitable on the continent in 2020, Kyari believes that the Petroleum Industry Act puts Nigeria at an advantage over these companies.
In what appeared controversial to most experts, NNPC last year declared an N287 billion profit after tax (PAT), saying its 2020 financial report showed that the state oil firm made N287 billion.
With the downstream sector struggling to perform in the country, Kyari’s bold statement comes at a time when the move away from fossil fuel is a crippling investment in the oil and gas sector as uncertainties cloud take-off of most oil and gas projects.
President Muhammadu Buhari had last year, assented to a long-awaited PIA, believed to have cost the country huge losses after failed attempts for over two decades.
Kyari noted that the new legislation had provided business opportunities that would leapfrog NNPC Limited to a global competitor.
Kyari disclosed this while addressing staff of the organisation in a town hall meeting held at the NNPC Towers in Abuja
Highlighting the significance of the PIA to the NNPC and by extension the Nigerian economy, Kyari said the new legislation had raised shareholders’ expectations on the company, even as it had given it wide room to make progress.
He said as a result of the new legislation, NNPC Ltd would not only shed some of its toxic liabilities but would be the largest and most capitalised company in the whole of Africa and, potentially, the most profitable on the entire continent.
Kyari urged employees of the organisation to ensure the company becomes a commercially viable entity and a multi-billion-dollar company that would continuously deliver value to its shareholders–the over two hundred million Nigerians.
[GuardianNG]
