DR.Abdallah El-Badri, secretary general of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has described the deregulation policy of the federal government as a welcome development, assuring that the Organisation will support the government for it to succeed.  El-Badri made the pledge after the second technical session with OPEC visiting team, some NNPC management and other top government functionaries at the board room of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in Abuja.
He noted that the corporation was going through rapid transformation and sued for commitment and stability for the reformation programme to achieve its aim.
“The reform programme is really good to shake up and wake up people so as to make things work. This will help you to look into your industry to revive what is not working. Because in the oil sector you have to shoot at the right time” he said.   
El-Badri expressed the hope that the National Gas plan would work saying it must be set on motion as the international market would have a space to accommodate the supply from Nigeria.
The Opec secretary general lauded the federal government for its Amnesty programme and sued for its sustenance for the country to meet its quota.
In his earlier presentation, Dr. Tim Okon the head of the NNPC transformation team stated that the reform of the Corporation was informed by the need to cure some of the deficiencies of the NNPC Act of 1977.
He maintained that the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) before the National Assembly if passed would transform the NNPC into a commercial cost saving centre that would be divorced from civil service philosophy and regulations.
In addition, the oil cartel has thrown its weight behind the oil and gas sector reform as proposed in the PIB currently before the National Assembly. El-Badri, said Nigeria was on the right path in proposing the law to free the NNPC of regulatory roles in order to enable it concentrate on production and compete effectively with the international oil companies (IOCs).                                                                                   
“What you are doing is very correct. I am speaking from a personal experience as a former minister of petroleum in Libya. A national oil company should concentrate on production as a partner of the IOCs. Regulation should be left to the ministry or another agency as proposed in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB). From experience, I know that a national oil company cannot effectively regulate the industry where it operates in joint ventures with IOCs. It cannot function as a ministry within a ministry,” he said.                               
He explained that the NNPC and Nigeria stood to benefit more if the corporation is allowed to operate as other national oil companies across the world are run.
Also speaking on the importance of the data and statistics that OPEC makes available to member countries, El-Badri who has served twice as Minister of Petroleum in Libya said governments across the world depend on the organisation’s figures and forecast to make energy policy decisions as the 13 OPEC countries have about 80 per cent of the world’s oil reserve.              
Speaking earlier, the group managing director of NNPC, Dr Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, explained that the lapses experienced in getting Nigeria’s oil production data to OPEC on time was as a result of conflicting roles the corporation has been saddled with over the years.      
“But all that would be over when the Petroleum Industry Bill is passed into law as the National Petroleum Directorate (NPD) would take over the role of collating data, processing and sending them to OPEC in a timely fashion,” he said.                                                       
However, OPEC’s Senior Statistician, Monika Psenner, in her presentation titled, “The Importance of Data Flow from Member Countries”, acknowledged that the flow of data Nigeria has improved greatly over the last few years.                                                                        
 Dr Tim Okon, Group General Manager, Planning, Strategy and Transformation, NNPC, in his contribution said whatever difficulty that was currently being experienced in data collation would be a thing of the past when the PIB is passed into law.                                                    
“The PIB provides for establishment of Electronic Information Management System. All oil companies are mandated by the law to send their production data electronically to Electronic Information Management System and to publish same on their websites. This will facilitate easy collection and collation of data,” he said.