Energy Expert Says NNPC’s Disclosure Of Its Financial Reports Will Attract Investment

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The Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Dateline Energy Services Limited, Wilson Opuwei, has said that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) move to open its books to auditors would attract “more investments”.

He said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in Lagos, noting that investors’ confidence and desire to invest in Nigeria were bolstered by transparency and accountability, something that was shown by NNPC’s declaration of a N287 billion profit in 2020.

This was the first time the corporation declared a profit in 44 years.

Opuwei said, “It is great that the NNPC is now opening up its books to auditors for us to see how the company is being run.

“That level of transparency and accountability is what investors looking to invest in Nigeria are interested in.

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“For the NNPC to declare profit in its audited reports, is a big plus for the industry because it will attract more investments.”

He said that NNPC’s move to declare profit was a sign that the corporation could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with its “peers”.

“The critics of the timing of the announcement are only being political because other National Oil Companies have been declaring their reports in the past.

“What the NNPC management did was to show that they can compete with their peers in the global oil market space and this is very significant, especially with the enactment of the Petroleum Industry Act,” he said.