Buhari appoints Mele Kyari as GMD of NNPC

Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed Mele Kyari to head the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), TOPNAIJA.NG reports.

This is the second appointment the president will be making since his inauguration in May.

Kyari, who is the current group general manager, crude marketing division, will assume office as NNPC GMD on July 7.

He will replace Maikanti Baru, the current GMD who was appointed in July 2016 and now retiring. At present, Kyari is Nigeria’s representative to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Mr Kyari comes to the job as the 19th GMD of the NNPC with a rich profile of professional and service credentials.

Kyari, who is a trained geologist, leads Nigeria’s team to the OPEC economic commission board which takes place before the bi-annual meetings of the OPEC ministerial conference. Although he shares a surname with Abba Kyari, he is not related to the president’s chief of staff.

The new NNPC GMD is of the Kanuri tribe while Abba Kyari is of the Shuwa tribe. Alongside Kyari, Buhari also appointed seven new chief operating officers for the national oil company.

They are:

• Roland Onoriode Ewubare (south-south) – chief operating officer, upstream;
• Mustapha Yinusa Yakubu (north-central) – chief operating officer, refining and petrochemicals;
• Yusuf Usman (north-east) – chief operating officer, gas and power;
• Lawrencia Nwadiabuwa Ndupu (south-east) – chief operating officer, ventures;
• Umar Isa Ajiya (north-west) – chief financial officer;
• Adeyemi Adetunji (south-west) – chief operating officer, downstream; and
• Farouk Garba Said (north-west) – chief operating officer, corporate services (with effect from June 28, 2019)

A geologist, Mr Kyari is known in the oil industry as a crude oil marketer with outfield pedigree in petroleum economics and crude oil and gas trading.

With over 32 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, his tour of duty traversed the entire value chain of the petroleum industry.

“Under his watch, the Crude Oil Marketing Division of the NNPC has recorded noticeable transformation in the management and sales of the various Nigeria’s crude oil grades via an infusion of transparency and automation of the processes,” the NNPC said of him in his official profile on its website.

A 1987 Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree holder in Geology and Earth Science from the University of Maiduguri, Mr Kyari did his National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) as a Well Site Geologist with the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) between 1987 and 1988.

Between 1988 and 1991, he worked with the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency before joining the NNPC subsidiary, Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL), where he worked as a Seismic Data Processing Geophysicist in the Data Processing Department.

In 1998, Mr Kyari was appointed the Exploration Geophysicist Production Sharing Contract (PSC) of the National Petroleum Investments Management Services (NAPIMS) until 2004 when he became the Abuja Operations Manager of NAPIMS.

In 2006, he was appointed the Supervisor PSC, Crude Oil Marketing Department (COMD) of the NNPC, from where he rose to the position of Head, and later Manager of Production Contracts Management of the COMD between 2007 and 2014.

Mr Kyari was appointed General Manager Oil Stock Management, COMD where he worked till 2015 before being appointed Group General Manager, COMD and later Nigeria’s National Representative at OPEC.