By Agatha Chitumu
Abuja

The Senate Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream) Wednesday lauded the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC Ltd) for repositioning the Nigerian oil and gas industry into a competitive business environment.

The Chairman of the Committee, Senator Bassey Albert Akpan gave the commendation, when he led members of the Committee on an oversight visit to the NNPC Towers .

This was contained In a statement by the Corporation’s Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division,
Garba Deen Muhammad in Abuja.

Senator Akpan according to the statement noted that the visit offered the lawmakers the opportunity to have first-hand information about Management’s actions in transitioning from a Corporation into a limited liability company in compliance with the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA).

He said, “We commend the effort of Mallam Mele Kyari and his team towards repositioning NNPC post-PIA. We’ve been told about the challenges, the expectations, projections and visions for NNPC. We are very impressed that the effort of the National Assembly in passing the PIA is yielding positive outcomes,” Senator Akpan said.

He assured that the Committee would look into the issue of funding for frontier exploration in order to ensure that the objective of boosting exploration and production in frontier basins in the next five years is met.

Speaking earlier, the Chief Executive Officer of the NNPC Ltd, Mallam Mele Kyari, informed the lawmakers that the Company is well primed to meet the growth trajectory envisaged in the PIA, stressing that it has received very positive commercial assurances from investors and partners across the globe.