Peter Uzoho
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mallam Mele Kyari, yesterday reiterated his commitment to drive positive change using internal talents in solving challenges in the oil and gas sector.
Mele Kyari, made this assertion at the 51st Annual National Conference of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM) taking place in Abuja.
The NNPC boss, who was represented by the Managing Director Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC), Mr Bala Wunti, stated that the corporation was committed to using internal talents clustered according to their passion, creativity and innovative inclinations to co –create in-house solutions to business challenges.
He specifically name –checked the “Operation White” initiative aimed at entrenching energy security and deepening the drive for transparency in petroleum products supply and distribution as a novel initiative driven by young and innovative talents within the corporation.
The NNPC helmsman said Big data, predictive analytics, Artificial Intelligence and agile work practices would also be deployed in repositioning the corporation on its journey to global excellence.
“In line with the Corporation’s TAPE Agenda, NNPC will create innovation labs that will crowd source and harness ideas in solving different business challenges across the value –chain.
“In today’s VUCA world, where all is changing at supersonic speed, NNPC is poised to be a leading hope for innovation and creativity in Africa oil and gas landscape,” he vowed.
The conference with the theme “Disruption: Change the Game” has over 2700 participants from diverse sectors across the nation’s economy.
The federal government’s fight against corruption and the resolve of the NNPC under Mele Kyari recorded another success with the recent inauguration of an 89-man task team to drive the Operation White Project, a critical transparency initiative aimed at tracking importation and distribution of petroleum products as well as bringing to an end illicit businesses in the nation’s downstream petroleum sub-sector.
The initiative launched separately in Abuja and Lagos by the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, was to specifically help the nation determine the actual amount of premium motor spirit (PMS) popular known as fuel imported and consumed by Nigerians and also detect and prevent diversion and smuggling of the products. With the use of technology, the team will track vessels and trucks conveying petroleum products into and across the country.
For decades, the distribution chain of the Nigerian petroleum downstream has been fraught with alleged opacity, smuggling and diversion. There has always been difficulty in telling, in actual fact, what amount of petroleum products is consumed on a daily basis, what is imported and what amount is actually lost to smuggling and diversion. This, largely, contributes to scarcity of petrol suffered by Nigerians almost on a yearly basis especially during yuletide.
