Nigeria is the largest oil producer in Africa and No. 7 in output of OPEC countries.

The new head of NNPC, Mohammed Sanusi Barkindo, said reforms to the company were necessary to ensure the growth of the country's petroleum industry and increased profitability.

Barkindo, who once served as secretary-general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said NNPC would be divided into seven smaller institutions that would be easier to manage, thus concentrating on the company's problem areas with greater ease and giving greater autonomy to each division.

"We will capitalize our operations and give financial autonomy to our subsidiaries for the development of the oil and gas sector as well as the nation," Barkindo said in a statement this week.

The new NNPC head said the new models for Nigeria's energy company are the Saudi, Malaysian and Brazilian energy giants. Brazil's state-owned Petrobras consists of several different subsidiaries focusing on offshore oil drilling, gas mining and even alternative fuels like cellulose ethanol.

Oil officials spoke optimistically about the revamping of NNPC this week, predicting Nigeria could increase production from its current level, about 1.88 million barrels per day, according to recent government figures, to 4 million bpd by 2015.

While the new NNPC head and his supporters, including Nigerian Oil Minister Rilwanu Lukman, who appointed Barkindo to the NNPC post, favor a restructuring of the country's oil giant, the reforms first must be approved by Nigerian lawmakers.

Agreement won't come easily, however, as there are many Nigerian leaders who stand to continue profiting from an unwieldy and opaque NNPC.

Though Nigeria has made hundreds of billions of dollars over the last several decades from its oil and gas reserves, much of the country remains impoverished. Years of government graft, nepotism and deep-rooted tribalism have resulted in little improvement in the lives of ordinary Nigerians hoping to benefit from their country's resource wealth.

In an apparent effort to counter the endemic corruption in Nigerian oil and gas, President Umaru Yar'Adua last month created a new ministry to tackle the problems in the oil-rich Niger Delta, namely militancy and violence.

The Niger Delta Affairs Ministry is responsible for promoting development in the impoverished delta and combating the violence that has caused Nigeria's oil production to drop by at least 20 percent in recent years.

High unemployment in the delta, environmental degradation caused by spills during oil and gas extraction, and a lack of basic resources such as fresh water and electricity have angered some of the region's youth and incited them to take up arms, forming militant groups such as Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

So far, the new Delta Ministry has been tasked with handling the substantial funding for delta development, totaling about $350 million, but the budget has yet to be approved by Nigeria's Senate.

The wait for Senate approval for funds, coupled with the need for lawmakers to pass proposed NNPC reforms aimed at improving productivity and transparency, is prompting some Nigerians to wonder when, if ever, the country can resolve the ongoing crisis in the delta that adversely affects both citizens and the state corporation.

"The conduct of our leaders determines, to a large extent, how Nigerians relate to themselves. The development of Nigeria is impossible without cohesion that results from resolution of conflicts," read a recent editorial in the leading Nigerian newspaper Vanguard.

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