The Senate’s Committee on Petroleum said the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu, did not contravene any law in the restructuring of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

Chairman of the committee, Sen. Tayo Alasoadura, made this known while briefing journalists shortly after a closed-door meeting with Kachikwu at the National Assembly in Abuja on Thursday.

The minister was at the senate to brief the committee on circumstances that led to the shutdown of NNPC’s operations nationwide on Wednesday.

Alasoadura said that the explanation given by Kachikwu indicated that the decision to restructure NNPC was to reposition it for optimal performance.

According to him, Kachikwu was only carrying out an internal restructuring to better position the corporation to serve Nigerians better.

He stated that the restructuring would help to cut down losses being experienced by the corporation in recent times.

The lawmaker, however, pointed out that the legislature was not consulted before such critical step was taken.

“He is working in the best interest of Nigeria. Now that the price of oil is going down, if we do not restructure, we might run into more problems as a country.Why we invited him was to be sure that the law was not contravened and we are convinced.

“From figures made available to us, NNPC in recent times lost about N30 billion monthly, but because of the restructuring, it lost only N3 billion, last month.

“The minister assured that the restructuring when completed, will help to end any form of loss.The only problem we had was that we were not consulted and the Minister of State adequately apologised,’’ he said.

He said that the committee would brief the senate appropriately.

Earlier, Kachikwu said he was creating divisions that would allow for optimal performance “and not unbundling the corporation’’.

He pointed out that the restructuring would help professionals who were hitherto under-utilised to make adequate use of their talents and experiences.

“I may have been misunderstood, but I want to assure you that it would no longer be business as usual; we will run a profitable entity.

“I want to assure you that we will create new ideas that we will create new challenges for people who are in the system, that we will create new career part for people, that we will create accountability.

“Every publication we have done since September, if you take time to read the numbers, you will see how they are moving very positively, both in terms of volume, in terms of reduced loss position.

“It is also in terms of massive reduction in the cost environment rate.

“So, I think we are going into a threshold where the measures are going to be the major focus for us because we have to deal with outstanding debts. Others are new funding for them to do a hundred per cent production platform and that is the only way you can increase incremental barrels,’’ he said.

Kachikwu added that the 2016 budget was based on about 2.2 million barrels.

“Before the explosion, we have actually began to hit 2.3 million barrels and the target was 2.4 million barrels to 2.5 million barrels,’’ he said.

He assured Nigerians that the development was in their best interest, adding that he would not do anything that would impact negatively on the economy.