By next year 2024, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Ltd (NNPCL) will issue an Initial Public Offer (IPO) in 2024 to enable Nigerians to subscribe to its shares.
Its Group Managing Director, Mele Kyari who said the company is wholly owned by Nigeria also stated that Port Harcourt refinery will be ready to produce fuel this year while Kaduna refinery will join by the first quarter of next year.
“So, over 200 million Nigerians are the shareholders of this company today. These shares are held in trust by the Federal Ministry of Finance Incorporated (MOFI), and the Federal Ministry of Petroleum on behalf of the Federation”, stated Kyari.
“What the Petroleum Industry Act 2021 (PIA) provided for is that within three years, this company’s ordinary shares can be sold to other Nigerians or interested international partners that combine shared values. There’s a process for this – which means you must take it to an Initial Public Offering (IPO) level.
“Once at the IPO level, those shares will be declared. It will be done with the authority of the National Economic Council (NEC), which means all the governors of the 36 states must agree that certain shares of this company can be sold.
Kyari assured Nigerians of the transparency and the accountability processes which he said is clean to ensure the Initial Public Offering (IPO) is ready by next year.
“We believe that the system’s transparent and accountability processes that we have on the ground are sufficient and by the end of June, maximum by of the year, it will be IPO already. The timeline is that it can be done within three years of the incorporation of NNPC, which is effective from 2021. By 2024 we should be able to go to IPO,” he noted.
On the rehabilitation of the refineries, Kyari said the Port Harcourt refinery would be ready by the end of the year.
“We plan to bring it on stream this month but unfortunately, we have some slippage because of global supply chain issues that we had. We believe that this plant will come on stream before the end of this year. We’re very sure about that. The Port Harcourt refinery has a combination of 210,000 barrels per day so that means it’s a third of the Dangote refinery.”
NNPC has a combined refining capacity of 445,000 barrels in the four refineries and Kyari said money was borrowed for the rehabilitation of the refineries and their repayment was tied to their performance.
“We’re also borrowing to fix the Warri and Kaduna refinery. Kaduna will kick up, it is a 36-month project but what happens in the rehabilitation is that you do them stage by stage. We will replicate the same thing in the Warri refinery where the contractor is on-site and Daewoo is on-site working, mobilised to the site, and equipment being delivered to the site. We believe also that within that 36-month cycle, it will also complete the rehabilitation but we’ll start fueling before that time.
“Port Harcourt will start producing fuel this year and by the first quarter of next year, Kaduna will start producing fuel,” the NNPC boss reveals
