President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday confirmed the appointment of the Group General Manager, Crude Oil Marketing Division (COMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kolo Kyari, as the new Group Managing Director of the corporation.

Mr Kyari from Borno State, succeeds the incumbent GMD, Maikanti Baru, who is due for retirement from the NNPC next month.

Mr Kyari comes to the job as the 19th GMD of the NNPC with a rich profile of professional and service credentials.

A geologist, Mr Kyari is known in the oil industry as a crude oil marketer with outfield pedigree in petroleum economics and crude oil and gas trading.

With over 32 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, his tour of duty traversed the entire value chain of the petroleum industry.

“Under his watch, the Crude Oil Marketing Division of the NNPC has recorded noticeable transformation in the management and sales of the various Nigeria’s crude oil grades via an infusion of transparency and automation of the processes,” the NNPC said of him in his official profile on its website.

A 1987 Bachelor of Science (B.Sc) degree holder in Geology and Earth Science from the University of Maiduguri, Mr Mele Kyari did his National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) as a Well Site Geologist with the Directorate of Foods, Roads and Rural Infrastructure (DFRRI) between 1987 and 1988.

Between 1988 and 1991, he worked with the Nigerian Geological Survey Agency before joining the NNPC subsidiary, Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL), where he worked as a Seismic Data Processing Geophysicist in the Data Processing Department.

In 1998, Mr Mele Kyari was appointed the Exploration Geophysicist Production Sharing Contract (PSC) of the National Petroleum Investments Management Services (NAPIMS) until 2004 when he became the Abuja Operations Manager of NAPIMS.

In 2006, he was appointed the Supervisor PSC, Crude Oil Marketing Department (COMD) of the NNPC, from where he rose to the position of Head, and later Manager of Production Contracts Management of the COMD between 2007 and 2014.

Mr Kyari was appointed General Manager Oil Stock Management, COMD where he worked till 2015 before being appointed Group General Manager, COMD and later Nigeria’s National Representative at OPEC.