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As part of renewed efforts to raise viability of other infrastructure within its domain, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), said it will commercialise some of its critical Information and Communications Technology (ICT) facilities to drive broadband penetration.

Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Dr. Maikanti Baru, made this known while receiving the Minister of Communications, Adebayo Shittu, who paid him a courtesy call at the NNPC Towers weekend.

Business Hilights gathered that the Corporation boost of over 960km of Fibre Optic Cable laid between Lagos-Benin and Warri to Kaduna, on the NNPC Pipeline Right of Way; 52 remote VSAT stations nationwide and two Network Centres connecting all NNPC Depots and Pump Stations across the country.

Explaining more to the visiting minister, Baru averred that “Our look-ahead plan is to commercialise our Fibre-Optics Cable Network utilising NNPC pipeline Right of Way that cuts across the entire country. Some of the benefits of this initiative include the opportunity to provide backbone carriage to meet the National 2020 Plan for broadband penetration in the country.”

While expressing NNPC’s readiness to collaborate with the Ministry of Communications in its quest to develop new ICT initiatives, Baru said “We are committed to supporting the Ministry of Communications to realise its ICT dreams which will not only ensure effective governance and service delivery in the country, but will also make life easier for Nigerians”.

A statement issued by the Corporation said NNPC will assist the Ministry in the delivery of the National Strategy and Roadmap Agenda, which intends to increase broadband penetration from six per cent to 30 per cent by 2020.

The NNPC also boasts of a Data Centre Facility that houses all its Data, Information and business solutions such as the Systems Applications & Products (SAP), E-mail services, collaboration solutions and specialised applications for the oil and gas industry.