The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu, says the Federal Government of Nigeria no longer has the resources to fund the country’s oil and gas industry, and is therefore, considering and developing new models of financing for the industry in the days ahead. He made this known at a town hall meeting in Abuja on Thursday.
“Financing is going to be a key component of our goal, because new models of financing would have to emerge. The country does not have the sort of resources to continue to fund the oil industry. As we go upstream, we are going to begin to see a lot of innovative financing mechanism to provide funding for the oil industry,” Kachikwu, who is also the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said.
“My dream, if I achieve it, is that by the end of 2016, we would completely exit cash calls and be able to find our funds one way to help support our business and get a lot more autonomy in terms of running the industry and report, basically, profit to the Federal Government.”
He also revealed that in January 2016, the federal government would make a final decision on the fate of the country’s refineries. According to him, he has received the Presidency’s approval to commence the final phase of the restructuring of the NNPC, which would see the Corporation unbundled into four components, while about 1,100 of NNPC Headquarters’ staff would be disengaged. [FMPR]
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