By Chioma Obinagwam
The Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG), Tony Attah, on Thursday in Port Harcourt, said the company was 100 percent committed to a Train 7 project that will be delivered with the involvement of competent Nigerian companies.
This was revealed in a statement issued by Andy Odeh, Manager, Corporate Communications and Public Affairs at NLNG.
The statement noted that the MD made the statement at a workshop titled “Public Workshop on Nigerian Content for NLNG’s Train 7 Development” held at Hotel Presidential in Port Harcourt, targeted at giving Nigerian companies information on how Nigerian Content can be maximised in NLNG Train 7 project.
The project is expected to ramp up the company’s production capacity by 35 percent from 22 Million Tonnes Per Annum (MTPA) to 30 MTPA.
Dignitaries at the event include the Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Content Development Monitoring Board (NCDMB), Engr. Simbi Wabote; top executives of the board; chief executives of Nigerian companies; NLNG’s Coordinator, Expansion, Suleiman Umaru; representatives of business across the country.
The workshop is the third held by the company in its bid to ensure Nigerian companies and the Nigerian economy derive maximum value from its Train 7 project. The project, valued at over $4 billion, is expected to commence as soon as a Final Investment Decision (FID) is taken.
In his welcome remarks, Tony Attah, said “NLNG is underpinned by its vision of being ‘a global LNG company helping to build a better Nigeria’. The global play is about the business itself and helping to build a better Nigeria is consist with our partnership with NCDMB.
“I will like to invite Nigerian companies to please participate in Train 7, which is the purpose of this workshop. It is consistent with our partnership with NCDMB. It also opens up the opportunities for local companies to play, starting with understanding the scope of the project. In addition, it creates an opportunity to meet the two consortia we are currently working with, B7 JV and SCD JV. They are the key players tasked with the Front End Engineering Design (FEED),” he added.
In his keynote address, the NCDMB Executive Secretary, Wabote, commended NLNG for the workshop, saying “we had one of it in Bonny community and another in Abuja. Today, we are here in Port Harcourt. It shows the sense of responsibility of the company to ensure that all stakeholders are taken on-board and are informed about the various opportunities in the project.
“The workshop goes to show that there is adequate information and communication. We have gone through the three levels from Bonny community where we assembled the Bonny contractors to talk about this to this moment. This is a strategy we have put in place to ensure that all upcoming opportunities are well communicated to all stakeholders at all levels.
“I share the sentiments with the NLNG MD on the 30 years anniversary of the company and 20 years anniversary in operation. You hardly have businesses that survive for that long apart from businesses that are well run. NLNG has paid back the loans they took to build the plant and now it now sees more opportunities and seeks further investment. This is a good thing,” he added.
He remarked that “the public workshop on Train 7 has two objectives: the first is to sensitise interested stakeholders to the upcoming Nigerian Content opportunities in the project. The second objective is to create to a platform for identification of local supply chain capacities and capabilities that are available in-country. It is very important to have clarity of what local content is about. Local content is not Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). It is not a favour that a company does to a country or a people. It is purely business. It is about giving local companies an opportunity to deliver value through the value chain.
“As we go into the development of NLNG’s Train 7 project, we believe it will bring about opportunities for utilising local goods and services in addition to affording local companies the prospect to enhance their capacities and capabilities. We expect that the train 7 project will provide a platform to expand existing businesses and create opportunities for new businesses like in the cryogenic space as we push the boundaries of local capabilities.
NLNG is owned by four Shareholders, namely, the Federal Government of Nigeria, represented by NNPC (49 percent), Shell Gas B.V. (25.6 percent), Total Gaz Electricite Holdings France (15 percent), and Eni International N.A. N. V. S.àr. l (10.4 percent).