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DMEA POLICY DMEA

Nigerian Senate orders probe of NLNG

dividend withdrawal charges

NIGERIA NIGERIA’S Senate has ordered a probe of alle- consortium’s dividend payments to NNPC had
gations that the Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consor- been.
NLNG stands accused tium illegally appropriated $18bn over a 15-year Earlier this year, NLNG said there was no
of making unauthorised period. truth to charges of illegal withdrawals from
withdrawals. The Senate, which is the upper chamber of the special federal account that takes receipt of
the National Assembly, revealed in a statement NNPC’s share of dividends and then distributes
last week that it had instructed General Ahmed the money among the country’s three tiers of
Idris, the country’s accountant general, to look government. It also denied that high-ranking
into the charges in greater detail. It said it had officials – including Mele Kyari, the general
ordered Idris to investigate the matter and sub- managing director of NNPC, and Tony Attah,
mit a report to members of the Senate in two the managing director of NLNG itself – had
weeks. played a role in the removal of funds from the
As AfrOil has reported previously, NLNG account.
stands accused of making unauthorised with- The consortium made these statements after
drawals from an account used to cover dividend Ndudi Elumelu, the minority leader in Nigeria’s
payments to its largest shareholder, Nigerian House of Representatives, called for an investi-
National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC). The Sen- gation of NLNG’s finances. Elumelu, a member
ate acknowledged this in its statement, saying: of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) faction
“The accountant general was mandated to from Delta State, urged the government to act
investigate among other things if the amount quickly. If Abuja does not start looking into the
was actually remitted to NNPC, how much was matter, he argued, it may not be able to deter-
actually remitted to the Federation Account, if mine where the funds have gone.
there is any deduction by NNPC, how much was Equity in the NLNG consortium is split
deducted and who authorised the deductions.” between NNPC (49%), Royal Dutch Shell (UK/
Lawmakers took this step after NLNG repre- Netherlands, 25.6%), Total (France, 15%) and
sentatives took part in a Senate committee hear- Eni (Italy, 10.4%). The consortium has been
ing on the federal government’s budget plans for producing LNG since 1999 and already has six
the 2021-2023 period. At that hearing, Eyono production trains in place at its gas liquefaction
Fatai-William, NLNG’s general manager for plant on Bonny Island. Together, these trains
external relations, presented documents show- have a capacity of 22.5mn tonnes per year (tpy).
ing that the consortium had paid more than Earlier this year, NLNG took a final invest-
$18bn worth of dividends to NNPC between ment decision (FID) on the construction of
2004 and 2019. another production train. The new unit, which
Nigerian officials appear to have greeted will be known as Train 7, will push total out-
NLNG’s figure with some scepticism. Idris put up by 7.2mn tpy to 30mn tpy, with the new
was quoted in the Senate statement as saying production facility adding 4.2mn tpy and the
that it was “difficult to determine with any cer- debottlenecking of existing trains contributing
tainty” exactly what the circumstances of the another 3.4mn tpy. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 35 03•September•2020