Energy Briefs
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The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has expressed its readiness to extend the harmonious working relationship it had with Mutiu Sunmonu, outgoing managing director, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria, SPDC, to Osagie Okunbor, newly appointed managing director of the company. The corporation said the synergy will go a long way in repositioning the oil and gas sector in Nigeria.
Joseph Dawha, group managing director, GMD, NNPC, made this pledge during a courtesy call on him at the NNPC Towers, Abuja, by the top management of SPDC to formally introduce the new helmsman. The GMD assured that the NNPC was ready to work with the new MD of Shell so that Nigeria will continue to exploit its abundant hydrocarbon resources through the joint venture arrangement between NNPC and SPDC.
Dawha who felicitated with Okunbor on his appointment also congratulated Sunmonu on his after putting in 36 years of meritorious service, according to a press release from signed by Ohi Alegbe, group general manager, Public Affairs Division of NNPC and made availbale to Realnews. He described Sunmonu as a core professional who brought his expertise to bear on the operations of the company while in service.
Earlier, Sunmonu said the visit was to formally introduce the new helmsman of SPDC whom he said had understudied him for months before the announcement of his appointment. Sunmonu expressed gratitude to the NNPC for all the support he enjoyed and appealed for similar collaboration with the new helmsman’s of the SPDC.
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NNPC Denies Spending N152 billion on Refineries
THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has refuted the allegation that it sent N152 billion for the rehabilitation of its four refineries located in Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt. Implying that the allegation was politically motivated and not based on any facts, Ohi Alegbe, group general manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, on Tuesday, January 13, told political gladiators in the country to exempt NNPC and its operations from their political brick-bats, in their desperation for get votes in the forthcoming general elections.
Describing as inaccurate claims that NNPC spent N152 billion in the Turn-Around Maintenance, TAM, of its refineries, Alegbe frowned on such deliberate distortion of facts and figures about its operations by “desperate vote-seeking politicians’ intent on gaining partisan advantage by hook or by crook.” According to him, as a public entity with fiduciary responsibility to the government and people of Nigeria, NNPC will remain focused on its mandate rather than to be distracted by the spate of politically inspired attacks on its operations.
The NNPC described as fiction the recent report of N152 billion supposedly spent on the repair of refineries credited to some nondescript civil society organisations, and stated that the organisation was driven by an overheated imagination. “Though a decision was taken in 2011 to rehabilitate all refineries using the Original Refinery Builder, ORB, of each of the refineries, the corporation made recourse to a new strategy after the ORBs declined participation and nominated some partners in their stead who came up with outrageously unfavourable terms. The nominated partners, as sole bidders came up with humongous price offers after two years of thorough and exhaustive scope of work definition and price negotiations. The proxies were also unwilling to provide post rehabilitation performance guarantees,” the statement said.
NNPC said that as an alternative, a new arrangement which kicked off in October 2014 and entails phased and simultaneous rehabilitation of all refineries using in-house and locally available resources in line with the spirit and letters of the Nigerian content law was initiated by it.
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NIPCO Wins Safety Award
NIPCO Plc, an indigenous downstream operator, has won the best safety compliant terminal award for the fourth consecutive year at the Nigeria Ports Authority, NPA, Honours’ event for tank farm and jetty operators in the nation’s coastline in 2014. The Health, Safety and Environment, HSE, award provides veritable avenue for the authority to showcase role models in the oil and maritime industry that have been operating within the context of international best practices in their different fields of endeavour
Emmanuel Abazie, NPA’s HSE committee chairman, at the event listed the notable achievements of the company to include absence of fire incident or fatalities in 2014, NIPCO’s participation in fighting fire incident at Apapa Bulk Terminal premises on April 4, 2014, and consistent high score in HSE audit during the year. In the area of HSE facility upgrade, the NPA Safety chief said NIPCO purchased additional foam fire tender with 5,000 litres of water and 1,000 litres of foam capacity in March, 2014 and also installed an 8-kilometre range emergency alarm system to effectively muster people together during sudden crisis. According to him, safety is first in every endeavour and without it nothing is safe including port efficiency, service delivery, and return on investment.
In his speech, Vitalis Ofoegbu, NIPCO’s safety chief, who received the award on behalf of the company, dedicated it to the giant strides of Venkatapathy Venkataraman, managing director of the company, for his peerless support to HSE elated activities in the last four years. He noted that the fact that the company had retained the awards in the last four years that he assumed the headship of the company was not by accident but for the painstaking nature the issue of safety was being handled in the organisation. He said it was a good omen for the company, stressing that the company had as one of its cardinal policy to make compliance to best HSE practices an important facets in its overall operations.
Ofoegbu said the continuous feat of the company in this realm did not come as a surprise adding that the NIPCO family had always taken safety as a culture even beyond the work place. According to him, all through the year 2014, the company had conducted its businesses with high level of integrity, which had mainly accounted for the plethora of recognitions by stakeholders in the oil and gas industry. He said that priority attention would continuously be given to safety and other ancillary things in the operations of the company in our quest to remain a benchmark in the hydrocarbon industry.
The HSE Awards is an annual event of NPA with the objectives of recognising excellence in a bid to raise safety consciousness and also promote the spirit of healthy competition within the context of global best practices.
— Jan. 26, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT
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Tags: Apapa Bulk Terminal Emmanuel Abazie Health HSE Joseph Dawha Mutiu Sunmonu Nigeria Ports Authority Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NIPCO Plc NNPC NPA Ohi Alegbe Osagie Okunbor Safety and Environment Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria SPDC TAM Turn Around Maintenance Venkatapathy Venkataraman Vitalis Ofoegbu
