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Interview:Corporate Nigeria (CN) talks to
Dr. Emmanuel O. Egbogah (OON), Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters
Restructuring Nigeria's Energy Sector with a Master Plan
CN: Dr Egbogah, you are the Special Adviser on Petroleum Matters to President Yar’Adua. Can you describe your responsibilities and activities as Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters?
Dr Egbogah: I advise Mr President holistically on matters of oil and gas resources planning, exploration, development, exploitation, processing, transportation, management, asset valuation, economics, policy regulation, strategy, governance, legal and regulatory framework, fiscal regimes and petroleum arrangements, financing and all issues pertaining to orderly development of the nation’s petroleum resources.
What prospects do you think are in store for Nigeria’s oil and gas industries in 2009?
The implementation of the Gas Master Plan will commence in 2009. The twelve months of 2009 will serve as the full transition period for the implementation of the most important and fundamental Reforms in the Oil and Gas Sector, including the commencement of the conversion of existing Joint Ventures to Incorporated Joint Ventures.
The Federal Government plans to dissolve the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), replacing it with five separate organisations. Why is the government taking this step, and how long before it comes into effect?
The transformation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, as it is currently organized and managed as a huge amorphous cost centre with conflicting roles in Policy, Regulation, Commercial Operations as well as National Asset Management, is central to the Reform Agenda. The reform seeks to transform NNPC from its present status as a “guardian” of Government Oil and Gas Assets into an integrated, international, commercial oil and gas corporation driven by revenue generation and profit oriented motives.
The kind of corporation that will emerge at the end of the restructuring process would be one that is divorced of some of its current roles of policy regulation and national assets management to function properly as a profit-oriented, commercial and duly capitalized limited liability company with rights to raise funds for its projects and operations.
Restructuring the NNPC will further decentralize the industry, which is the mainstay of the nation’s economy, and make it more efficient and result-oriented.
The restructuring will help streamline operations in the nation’s oil and gas industry in such a way that the major tasks of policy regulation, commercial operations and national assets management are carried out by separate public entities as opposed to current conflicting roles by NNPC.
The new NNPC Ltd will be focused on profitable commercial activities as a world-class oil and gas company. Under a restructured industry, the NNPC would be operating with a new orientation as every public institution with a business mindset.
The Act establishing the NNPC must be repealed and an enabling Act enacted by the National Assembly before the operation of the New Companies. This also implies that full legislative process must be followed to insure that appropriate enabling laws are enacted before the OGIC recommendations and decision of Government can be implemented.
