We have cut down on NNPC’s operational cost, says Kachikwu

The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources and Group Managing Director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, has said that the NNPC has succeeded in cutting down its operational cost, a development that has led to the reduction of its monthly losses from N185bn to N12bn over four months.

The minister disclosed this at a press briefing to announce the 6^th Africa Petroleum Congress and Exhibition coming up in Nigeria in March 2016. Kachikwu said the corporation and its subsidiaries would adopt an integrated security model and would increase the speed of the delivery of tasks.

He said, “Cutting your cost is an efficiency issue. For instance, even in our restructuring process, there is a level you cut down on your costs. In all the elements of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, we will be looking at the total operations to see how we can deliver the same or better services at the least possible price.

He observed that although member countries at the last meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries projected that oil prices would start to rise from February next year, they decided to allow market forces to determine crude prices for a while.

“For the majors, we are engaging with them and we are being very astute in terms of assets management to trim down cost. We are becoming a bit more preferential in terms of cost-driving investments that we make. Not all projects that are on the table will see the light of day if the unit price of oil for carrying out such projects does not come to a certain threshold.

“We are doing a lot of work and we are getting results in cost-cutting and we are going to continue. But different from just the majors cutting costs, our own operational network and how we manage the oil industry has got to change. We’ve seen that over the last four months, if you look at the three reports we’ve published for the NNPC’s operations, you’ll find that starting from a deficit loss position of about N185bn a month, we were down to N12bn in the last report.”