The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is seeking a first time International bank loan of $1.5 billion, chidi opara reports learned. The facility would be a five-year syndicated loan.

International financial giants, Standard Chartered Bank, Standard Bank and BNP Paribas are known to have submitted bids to source for the loan, which NNPC is yet to approve. The Nigerian Oil and Gas giant is expected to decide on the bids soon.   

NNPC spokesman, Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, commenting on this development said, "We are always looking at alternative funding sources, where we suffer shortfalls because of competing demands. This is a large country with a lot of needs,"

"We have a lot of talks with highly regarded international banks who are looking to be involved in our deep offshore and other projects," Ajuonuma further revealed.

NNPC management last year denied reports that the Corporation was broke.
Nigeria's lower Parliament, the House of Representatives recently ordered the Corporation to commence repayment of the over four hundred billion naira owed the Nigerian government.

Could it be that NNPC leadership are the culprit frustrating the PIB, therefore not allowing it to scale through the House. They have so much to loose, if the PIB ever get passed by the house. Could it be that they are scared of their dirty secrets being revealed. They will have to be more transparent in their dealings which might crippled their source of money making avenues. For example, if the bill ever passed, and NNPC becomes a public company, I bet they would have been forced to release the audit report that was orchestrated by Aganga last year.

In the past and till date, we're made to believe that the primary reason why the bill is still stalling is because of foreign interest.

Imagine this loan scaling through; the interest rate, terms and tenor will be so ridiculous all on the basis of no accountability, transparency, economic risk and political risk. Damn, this is just so frustrating thinking about it.