Despite making over N800 billion trading losses in 2018, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari says the corporation is on track to be profitable and able to declare profits at the end of 2020.
With the losses drastically reduced to less than N2 billion in 2019, Kyari further steps have been taken to cut costs and make the corporation profitable.
He spoke during a parley with energy journalists in Abuja on Friday.
He stated that NNPC has become more transparent and accountable to the Nigerian people whom he described as “our 200 million shareholders”.
With the Covid-19 pandemic wrecking havoc in the finances of oil and gas companies, remained optimistic that NNPC has turned the corners.
According to him, “Our vision is that NNPC will become a company of excellence and declare dividends to Nigerians and shareholders.
“We are optimistic that at the end of 2020, NNPC will declare dividends to Nigerians in spite of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
He pointed out that the corporation in the past years has opened its books to Nigerians with monthly publication of its accounts.
He said: “NNPC has never published its audited financial statement in 43 years. We came and started doing that and released the 2018 financial statement which showed that NNPC lost N803 billion.
“We were not afraid of doing that and there were a lot of criticisms that we lost money in refinery operations and pipeline business.
“We went ahead and published the 2019 audited report and was able to learn and cut cost and became more efficient.
“There is no company in the country which has cut its losses within one financial year by N800 billion.
“That means we reduced 97 per cent of our losses by cutting our cost and improving our efficiency.”
He said that the NNPC was able to maintain its obligations to the Federation Account for seven months without fail in spite of the huge impact of the coronavirus on the oil and gas industry.
