By Dahiru Ali
When the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) released its 2024 Annual Report, public attention gravitated to the big, gleaming figures: a headline profit of N5.4 trillion and total revenue of N4.5 trillion. For many, that was enough, a surface-level indicator of a turnaround story.
But for Mr. Victor Eromosele, a former Chief Financial Officer and now Chairman of M.E Consulting Limited, the real story was buried deeper in the numbers. Long before offering an opinion, he reached for his calculator.
“Before forming any judgment, I wanted to see the figures in a more stable currency,” he explained. “The Naira’s volatility distorts year-to-year comparisons, so converting it to dollars provides a fairer lens, both for internal performance and for benchmarking against global peers.”
Once he stripped away the noise of currency swings, a clearer picture emerged. The company’s N4.5 trillion revenue translated to about $31.1 billion, while its N5.4 trillion profit equated to roughly $3.7 billion.
At first glance, these conversions might appear modest beside the financial giants of the oil world. Chevron, for instance, reported $193 billion in revenue for the same period, and ENI, Italy’s national energy major, posted $198.7 billion. Those are scales no Nigerian company can realistically match.
But Eromosele was not comparing size, he was comparing efficiency. “When you want to know how well a company performs, you don’t stop at revenue,” he said. “You look at margins, how much of each dollar of revenue is turned into profit.”
On that score, NNPCL’s numbers took on a surprising shine. Its profit margin stood at 11.8 percent, higher than Chevron’s 9 percent and ENI’s 6 percent.
“If you judge purely by efficiency, not scale or market spread, NNPCL did better,” Eromosele said. “From that perspective, its profit margins are actually superior.”
That statement alone marks a notable shift in the perception of Nigeria’s state energy company. For decades, NNPCL was synonymous with opacity, inefficiency, and bureaucratic drag. The new figures, especially when tested against global standards, tell a different story: a company learning to behave like a commercial entity, not a government department.
Eromosele’s review did not stop at margins. He examined asset growth, capital productivity, and returns. What he found highlighted a company in transition — not perfect, but clearly evolving.
According to the report, NNPCL’s assets grew by 56 percent in 2024, a rate he described as “significant and deliberate.” Such growth, he noted, was happening amid the company’s adaptation to the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA), which transformed it from a public corporation into a fully commercial entity.
For investors who continue to ask why NNPCL is not yet listed on the Nigerian Exchange (NGX), Eromosele pointed to a key metric: Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) essentially a measure of how well the company uses its capital to generate profit.
In 2024, NNPCL’s ROCE came in at 28 percent, up from 23 percent the previous year, a clear sign that the company’s capital is working harder. “A 28 percent ROCE is impressive by any measure,” he said. “It suggests discipline in capital deployment and strong value creation from existing assets.”
The very act of releasing a detailed, audited financial statement was, in itself, a quiet revolution. For years, Nigerians had only vague glimpses of the company’s finances. That has changed under the new corporate governance structure.
Publishing an annual report, structured to international standards, independently audited, and accessible to the public, signals intent. It says NNPCL wants to be judged by data, not politics. In Eromosele’s words, “Numbers don’t have emotions. If you clean up the distortions and compare apples with apples, NNPCL’s 2024 numbers show a business finding its rhythm.”
There’s no pretending that NNPCL has arrived. Its revenues remain small compared to global majors. Operational transparency and governance will continue to be tested. Yet the direction appears unmistakable.
The 2024 report reveals an organization with tightening operations, expanding assets, and improving profitability. It hints at a culture shift, from survival mode to strategy mode.
For a company long burdened by public skepticism and legacy inefficiencies, that’s a significant milestone. And in a world where the energy transition is reshaping global oil economics, NNPCL’s journey toward competitiveness may ultimately matter more than its short-term profit.
“When you judge strictly by the numbers,” Eromosele said, “NNPCL’s performance doesn’t just hold its own, in some respects, it surpasses expectations.”
If 2023 was about transformation on paper, 2024 appears to be about execution, and, perhaps for the first time in its modern history, NNPCL is beginning to look and act like the global energy company it claims to be.