The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Bayero University, Kano (BUK) on Friday pledged to partner in the ongoing exploratory activities in the frontier basins across the country.
The Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, made this known when the Vice-Chancellor of BUK, Prof. Muhammad Bello, visited him at the Corporation’s headquarters in Abuja.
In a statement by Mr Ndu Ughamadu, Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Baru reiterated the willingness to partner BUK because its workforce would be drawn from the universities.
”Your visit would open up opportunities for collaboration between NNPC and your university and we are looking forward to receiving your inputs,” Baru said.
He said while the Corporation was not keen on setting up a university, it had nonetheless established the NNPC Learning Academy, which trains high-level manpower for the Oil and Gas Industry.
The GMD said that the academy offers short-term high-level technical courses capable of enhancing the oil industry operations.
Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor said the university was in collaboration with Petronas, the Algerian Petroleum Corporation, and called on other industry stakeholders to join NNPC by showing interest in education.
Bello noted that Petronas had awarded PhD scholarship to 13 staff members of BUK in different areas of Civil Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, among others in recent times.
”Bayero University, Kano, has been given permission by the National University Commission (NUC) to commence degree programmes in Petroleum Engineering and Chemical Engineering.
”The students are in their fourth year now and we believe that it would be a good idea for us to establish a relationship with NNPC in a number of areas.
”We want to appeal to NNPC to support BUK in implementing the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) we signed with Petronas’ University of Technology,” Bello said.
The NNPC had on Thursday said it would re-invigorate exploratory activities in the seven hydrocarbon basins in Nigeria to shore up the nation’s reserve base.
