Nigeria's State Oil Company Appoints Four New Executive Directors - See more at: http://www.rigzone.

ABUJA, Aug 11 (Reuters) - Nigeria's state oil firm has appointed fournew group executive directors and cut its management staff, it said on Tuesday,the latest step in an overhaul of the energy sector in Africa's biggest crudeproducer. Last week former Exxon Mobil executive Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu wasappointed as the new head of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Hedismissed all of the company's executive directors the next day after agovernment directive. President Muhammadu Buhari, elected in March, has madeclear his desire to clean up the oil sector, which generates around 70 percentof government revenues in Africa's biggest economy. He dissolved the NNPC boardin June as a first step. "The new appointments are in line with thefederal government's aspiration to transform the corporation into a lean,efficient, business-focused, transparent and accountable national oilcompany," said NNPC spokesman Ohi Alegbe in a statement. The statementadded that more than 30 top management staff had been retired, "reducingthe number from 122 to 83". The appointments, approved by Buhari, includeMaikanti Baru as group executive director for exploration and production andIsiaka Abdulrazaq as group executive director for finance and services. Theother appointments are Dennis Nnamdi Ajulu, as group executive director forrefining and technology, and Babatunde Victor Adeniran, who is now groupexecutive director for commercial and investment. New managing directors werenamed at a number of NNPC subsidiaries, including the Pipelines and ProductsMarketing Company (PPMC) and Duke Oil, the trading subsidiary. Bothsubsidiaries are being investigated to determine whether the government wasshort-changed by a scheme to swap crude for refined products. The president,who was inaugurated on May 29 but has said he will not name his cabinet untilSeptember, is widely expected to keep the petroleum portfolio for himself inorder to personally oversee a root-and-branch restructuring of the oil sector.Buhari has said about 250,000 barrels of oil were being stolen each day andthat his government was aiming to recover an estimated $150 billion in stolenfunds with U.S. assistance. In 2013, the then-central bank governor LamidoSanusi said tens of billions of dollars in oil revenue had failed to make itinto state coffers, which the company denied. In June, Nigeria's NationalEconomic Council said NNPC had earned 8.1 trillion naira ($41 billion) from2012 until the end of May, but only paid 4.3 trillion to the federalgovernment. (Reporting by Camillus Eboh; Writing by Alexis Akwagyiram; Editingby Gareth Jones)