Alpha Group of Companies Chairman/CEO Sheikh Mohamed Bayorh and senior executives from leading prominent companies in UAE welcomed the Nigerian Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Honorable Emmanuel Kachikwu this week at the Burj Al Arab, reported Press Release Network.
Also present were senior executives from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) who met with a diverse group of government officials and leading energy companies to discuss potential investment opportunities in Nigeria.
The UAE’s delegation included Suhail Al Mazrouei, Minister of Energy and Chairman of IPIC and senior executives from ENOC and Al Ghurair Group.
Kachikwu also met with other international global energy companies including China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and DSSI.
“We were extremely honored to organize and host His Excellency Dr. Kachikwu’s inaugural trip to UAE as the Minister of State Petroleum Resources after being sworn-in earlier this month to meet with our distinguished investors and partners in the region. We commend him greatly for his keen vision and leadership in transforming the oil and gas sector in Nigeria and increasing international investor’s confidence in exploring opportunities in working with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation”, said Sheikh Mohamed Bayorh.
“We believe there are tremendous opportunities in the Nigerian oil and gas sector and look forward to doing business with the new administration,” said Wang Baoji- President CNPC Middle East and Africa.
For his part Kachikwu revealed the existence of the ‘20 Fixes’ plan meant to “increase NNPC’s profitability and one of them is to increase our refining capacity to reduce foreign imports,” he said.
“We believe we can share our refinery operating experience with NNPC; we were able to increase both yield and capacity in a very short period with our Libyan refinery joint venture operation with Lybia’s national oil company,” added Sultan Al Ghurair, CEO for Al Ghurair Energy.
In other news AllAfrica said that Nigerian President Muhammad Buhari confirmed that some former government officials have started voluntarily returning funds to the Federal Government, part of the public funds they acquired illegally.
Nonetheless, the government was not satisfied with the partial return of the “looted funds”.
“On corruption, yes, they are still innocent.
“But, we are collecting documents and some of them have started voluntarily returning something. But we want all.
“When we get those documents then we will formally charge them to court and then we will tell Nigerians to know those who abused trust when they were entrusted with public funds or when they took it by force for 16 years.
“So, the day of reckoning is gradually approaching,” he said.
He made these remarks with members of the Nigerian community at the Nigerian House on Tuesday in Tehran, Iran.
