The President of Nigeria Muhammadu Buhari has sanctioned the next phase of reorganization of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources revealed.

Dr. Ibe Kachikwu Kachikwu revealed this at the town hall meeting in Abuja on Thursday. He stated that the next phase of the reorganization which has been sanctioned by the president, would see the NNPC divided into four different independent profit-oriented companies.

“Right now I have just received the president’s approval to embark on the final phase of the restructuring we are doing. That restructuring effort will unbundle this company into four key components: the upstream company, the downstream company, midstream company which is the gas and power company and then of course, the refining group holding company” Kachikwu said.

He added that the result of the reorganization will allow NNPC focus on individuals who will lead as virtual managing directors to run the units the focus on delivering profits for the organization. He noted that at the corporate level, there will still be other managing directors.

According to the minister, some of the activities to be focused on in 2016 includes, the slashing of production cost, growing crude oil production to 2.4 mbpd, slashing government’s subsidy on domestic supply of petrol via market-based methods, helping the country end the difficult cash call system in joint venture operations, decreasing the industry’s contracting cycle to six months and reengineering a profitable operational model for the country’s four refineries, THISDAY reports.