Page 8 - GLNG Week 17 2021

GLNG AFRICA GLNG

Nigeria LNG wins tax waiver

INVESTMENT THE Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium has the government was offering for road construc-
been granted a tax waiver worth NGN20bn tion and other infrastructure projects and also
($52.49mn) for its expenditures on road and praised the consortium for paying its 2020 tax
bridge construction. bill of NGN130bn ($341.16mn) three months
The country’s Federal Inland Revenue Ser- ahead of the deadline.
vice (FIRS) had granted the concession, also Bayo Denrele, a representative of NLNG,
known as a road infrastructure credit certificate, thanked FIRS for processing the group’s request
to NLNG in a ceremony held last week. At the for a road infrastructure credit certificate quickly.
event, FIRS officials noted that said the con- He also noted that NLNG had provided 50% of
sortium had earned the waiver by building the the funding for construction of the Bodo-Bonny
Bodo-Bonny Island bridge, which will connect Island bridge, with the remaining 50% coming
Bonny Island to the city of Port Harcourt, and from Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Works and
several roads across the Opobo channels. Housing.
They also noted that NLNG had contracted NLNG is a consortium set up by Nigerian
Julius Berger, a Nigerian company, to build the National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC), with 49%;
roads and bridge, all of which are in Rivers State. Royal Dutch Shell (UK/Netherlands), with
The value of the project came to NGN120.681bn 25.6%; Total (France), with 15%, and Eni (Italy),
($316.71mn), they stated. with 10.4%. The partners own a gas liquefac-
The new road infrastructure credit certificate tion plant with six production trains on Bonny
was the fourth such waiver awarded to NLNG Island. They brought the first train on stream in
within the last three years. The first three waivers 1999 and made a final investment decision (FID)
were worth NGN46bn ($120.72mn), FIRS rep- on the construction of a seventh train last year.
resentatives said at last week’s ceremony. The Train 7 project will bring NLNG’s total
Femi Oluwaniyi, the co-ordinating direc- capacity up from 22.5mn tonnes per year to
tor of the agency’s tax operations group, said 30mn tpy. It envisions the construction of a sev-
at the event that FIRS saw NLNG as a model enth train that will turn out 4.2mn tpy, as well as
taxpayer. He urged other companies active in the debottlenecking of existing trains, which will
Nigeria to take advantage of the tax breaks that add another 3.4mn tpy of capacity.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 17 30•April•2021