Oil & Gas
–
Andrew Yakubu, group managing director, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, charges the corporation’s business development directorate to brace up for the era that would follow the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill currently holed up in the National Assembly
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Jun. 30, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has charged the corporation’s business development directorate to further consolidate on the gains of its transformation process in readiness for the post-Petroleum Industry Bill, PIB, era. Andrew Yakubu, group managing director, NNPC, said the directorate should evolve innovative and proactive strategies for identifying new business opportunities that could capture and create value for the corporation.
Yakubu gave the charge at the opening ceremony of a two-day workshop with the theme: “Value Creation: An Optimum to Business Development,” organised by the directorate to brainstorm, build the capacity of staff, and chart a way forward for the directorate. The NNPC boss, who pledged utmost support to the directorate on account of its strategic importance as the engine room of creative business ideas that could sustain and propel the corporation to higher heights, urged it to wake up to its responsibilities.
“The time to take your mandate more seriously is now… For NNPC to realize its vision of becoming a world class oil and gas company in line with our transformation roadmap which includes the right to play on the global scene, a strong business development capability must be a top and strategic priority,” he said.
Yakubu noted that the evolving business environment in the international energy scene with regard to the development of shale gas in the United States of America as well as the increasing competition from traditional oil producers like Angola and new oil producers like Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and others, present challenges that should propel the business development directorate to lead the way in developing strategies for the NNPC to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the changes.
He urged the directorate to build the necessary capabilities and skills and seek collaboration from within and outside the NNPC business ecosystem in order to fulfil its mandate. The GMD also called for a high-level cooperation and interaction between the business development directorate and other directorates in order to achieve synergy and unity of purpose in the process of exploring new business opportunities, adding that: “While the Business Development Directorate must take leading roles in identifying opportunities for the organization, a shared-value strategy must underpin our growth aspirations.”
Earlier, in her welcome address, Aisha Abdurrahman, group executive director, business development directorate, NNPC, stated that it was her concern about the sub-optimal level of activities in the Directorate that inspired her to organize the workshop to generate ideas and chart a roadmap for actualising the directorate’s mandate.
She listed the core functions of the directorate to include generating and developing business opportunities; optimising existing assets; executing downstream obligation projects for production sharing contracts, PSC; and ensuring that NNPC’s activities were in compliance with extant laws and regulations.
Tags:
