Nigeria's federal government dissected its state-owned oil firm into five splinter companies and constituted a National Energy Council to reorganize the energy sector of the economy, the country's state-run media reported here on Wednesday.
The council, headed by Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua, was given six months to unbundle the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) into five functional companies.
Under the arrangement, the country's Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources and the NNPC will cease to exist.
Henry Ajumogobia, the minister of state for energy (petroleum), who briefed State House correspondents after Wednesday's Federal Executive Council meeting, named the envisaged companies as the National Petroleum Directorate, the National Oil Company and the Petroleum Inspectorate Commission.
Others are the Petroleum Products Distribution Authority and the National Oil and Gas Assets Holding and Management Services.
Ajumogobia said the National Petroleum Directorate would replace the ministry, while the National Oil Company would play the role currently played by the NNPC.
The Petroleum Inspectorate Commission would also replace the current Department of Petroleum Resources, while the Petroleum Products Distribution Authority would replace the Petroleum Products Prices Regulatory Agency.
The fifth company would manage the assets owned by both the ministry and the NNPC.
The minister said the reorganization followed the reports of the Oil and Gas Reform Committee set up in 2000 and headed by Presidential Adviser Edmund Daukoru and the Review Committee of the National Council on Privatization headed by former vice- president Atiku Abubakar.
Source: Xinhua
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