ABUJA (AFP) — A Nigerian presidential panel on oil and gas sector reform Monday recommended that the state oil company be transformed into an "independent limited liability company."
"Our report provides for the incorporation of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited as an independent limited liability company," the panel's head Rilwanu Lukman said shortly after he submitted the report to president Umaru Yar'Adua.
Lukman, who is also energy adviser to the president, said the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in its current form is burdened with responsibilities that are not really the role of a national oil company.
"What we have done in the case of the NNPC is to clearly define what a truly national oil company should do and put it in a way that it can operate as a profitable centre, as a commercial organisation that is designed to make profit like other oil companies," Lukman said.
He said the panel also recommended the creation of five spin-off institutions to handle some of NNPC's responsibilities.
He named them as the National Petroleum Directorate, Nigerian Petroleum Inspectorate, Petroleum Products Regulatory Authority, National Petroleum Asset Management Agency and National Petroleum Research Centre.
Lukman said the report also provides for "the incorporation of the loose joint ventures in the oil sector into proper joint ventures not only to make them more efficient and transparent, but also to enable them to raise whatever funds they require in the money market like other oil companies do."
President Umaru Yar'Adua said the government would look at the report, which will be presented to the cabinet for adoption next week, and "act on it expeditiously."
An outline of the panel's main recommendations has been in public circulation for the past several months, and the final report is thought to differ little from the interim report recently presented to the government.
Fresh from taking power, Yar'Adua ordered the restructuring of NNPC in August 2007, sacking the company's director general Funsho Kupolokun within weeks and creating a national energy council to re-configure its interests.
Nigeria was Africa's largest oil producer until it was overtaken in April by Angola, according to Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) figures.
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