The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation has said it will not bow to pressure from International Oil Companies operating in the country.
In a statement signed by Acting Group General Manager, Public Affairs, NNPC, Mr. Fidel Pepple, the corporation said multinationals had been employing subtle means, including blackmail, to get it to kowtow to their desires in the award of contracts and project execution.
Pepple said NNPC would not be stampeded or browbeaten into abandoning its established process of contract award by calculated blackmail by the IOCs and other interested parties.
"NNPC has an established procedure of contract and project approval, which includes conduct of economic analysis to establish project viability and Federal Government's take from investments in the upstream," Pepple said.
He explained that the procedure must be followed and that the IOCs could not stampede the corporation into taking decisions that might be inimical to the nation because of their pecuniary interests.
The spokesman dismissed claims that NNPC had not held its periodic Group Executive Committee meetings to discuss some major projects like the Total Egina deep offshore project and endorse same to the board for approval.
"This claim is untrue as GEC meetings are being held weekly or fortnightly. However, Erha North Phase 2 and the Egina Project contracts have not been discussed yet at these meetings because the NNPC management is critically reviewing the overall economics of the projects in view of their high cost estimates in order to establish their validity, maximise Federal Government's take and ensure comparative price competitiveness vis-à-vis benchmarks," he said.
The corporation also dismissed the allegation that its Group Executive Director, Exploration and Production, Mr. Abiye Membere, was behind a contract splitting attempt on the Egina project, just as he allegedly did with the previous Bonga Southwest project.
It said that the alleged contract splitting of Bonga Southwest was never on the cards, as there was never a time that SNEPCO proposed three Floating Production Storage and Offloading facility for Bonga Field Development.
