Business
…As NNPC Unveils New Identity, Vision
The Group Managing Director of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Mohammed Barkindo, says that the company is prepared to face the challenges of oil and gas business as it transformed into a true National Oil Company (NOC).
Barkindo said this at the NNPC Transformation Town Hall Meeting in Abuja, where he unfolded the 18-month agenda of the corporation.
He said the corporation would shed its regulatory and supervisory roles in the industry and operate profitably like any other international NOC.
“We need to also transform the conditions under which we operate. At best, we remain the operators of the assets with the international oil companies (IOCs) working for us as contractors.
“We need to conquer our domestic frontiers and venture our operations offshore. We need to run an integrated, efficient and capitalised NOC which will produce its crude, refine and market its oil.
“It does not make sense to run as an NOC and yet be privatising your refineries,’’ Barkindo said.
The GMD said the corporation had set itself a target of N25 billion in costs savings per period of assessment as it began the transformation journey and surpassed it by N27 billion at the first review.
Spurred by the feat, he said the NNPC management was emboldened that the staff could make it and therefore decided to go on full “throttle”.
Barkindo said the initiative involved the various Strategic Business Units (SBUs) to maximise their profits.
By the same vein, he said, the cost centres, including medical, public affairs, corporate planning and legal units at the corporate head office, were to be encouraged to be effective service delivery centres.
According to him, the strategic autonomy must come with corporate independence hence NNPC needs to have quality assets to truly perform in the new dispensation.
Barkindo said that Acting President Goodluck Jonathan had promised that all the corporation’s assets taken away from it would be restored before the passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill by the National Assembly.
He said the Kaduna Refining and Petrochemical Company (KRPC) would also be capitalised to operate optimally and be able to source for funds from the capital market, run as a profit-making company and declare dividends to its shareholders.
“With this transformation, we shall be able to deploy staff to the areas they are best qualified to realise their full potential.
“Our business is that of dollar and cents, naira and kobo. In the year ending 2008, we recorded a deficit of N326 billion.
“If we were to operate under the companies and allied matters law like any other profit making company, we would have folded up,’’ Barkindo said.
He said it was time the NNPC moved away from the margin of negative numbers and transform its operations in line with industry’s best.
Cornerstone of Financial Services
A survey of more than 1 000 global finance leaders undertaken by digital payment network Ripple shows that 72% of respondents believe they need to offer a digital asset solution to remain competitive.
According to Ripple, leaders from the banking, fintech, corporate and asset management sector have made it clear that the “digital asset revolution is happening now”.
“Digital assets are quickly becoming a cornerstone of financial services, underpinned by progressive regulation, growing interest from Tier-1 banks, a steady consumer shift from banks to fintech providers, and booming stablecoin adoption,” Ripple says.
The survey was conducted in early 2026 and the findings released in March.
Stablecoin Boon or Bane?
Ripple has experienced significant success in the stablecoin sector since launching its Ripple USD (RLUSD) stablecoin in 2024.
With a market cap of $1.56 billion, it is considered a major regulated player in the market.
No doubt the platform was pleased to learn through its own survey that financial leaders were most bullish about stablecoins.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents believed they could boost cash-flow efficiency and unlock trapped working capital.
Ripple noted that finance leaders were thinking about stablecoins as more than “just a new way to execute payments”; instead, they viewed them as effective tools for treasury management.
In March 2026, Ripple began testing a new trade finance model built around RLUSD in a bid to increase the speed of cross-border payments.
The pilot initiative, developed alongside supply chain finance company Unloq [https://unloq.com], is running on the XRP Ledger inside a testing framework developed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The Asian city-state is one of the platform’s biggest growth markets.
The idea behind the project is to see whether stablecoin-based settlement can streamline trade finance, too often hampered by reliance on intermediaries and slow reconciliation.
The only potential drawback is that if the initiative takes off, the Ripple to USD price could be negatively affected.
Ripple has always championed its native XRP token as a bridge asset, the “middleman” in the process of a financial institution turning dollars in the US into pounds in the UK, for example.
Ripple converts dollars into XRP and then back into pounds.
If RLUSD can do exactly the same thing, questions will be asked about XRP’s relevance.
That is a bridge Ripple will have to cross if it gets to that point.
Tokenisation Partners
Another interesting finding from Ripple’s survey is that most banks and asset managers are seeking tokenisation partners to help execute their strategies.
Some 89% of respondents said digital asset storage and custody were top priority. “Token servicing/lifecycle management also ranks highly for banks at 82%, while asset managers place greater emphasis on primary distribution at 80%,” Ripple found.
The survey also revealed that just more than half of fintechs and financial institutions want an infrastructure provider that can offer a “one-stop-shop solution”. This rose to 71% among corporate financial leaders.
Ripple attributes this to institutions and firms wanting uncomplicated, cohesive systems.
Infrastructure Rules
In its final analysis, Ripple says companies across the board are looking for partners and solutions that are “secure, compliant, battle-tested and that enable growth and execution”.
“The message is clear: infrastructure decisions made today will shape competitive positioning tomorrow.”
No surprise that this is precisely where Ripple is placing much of its focus.
