Page 16 - DMEA Week 29

DMEA LNG DMEA

NLNG responds to MP’s charges

of corruption

NIGERIA THE Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium has and simply untrue.”
denied allegations of unauthorised withdraw- The consortium issued its statement after
NLNG said it had not als from an account used to cover dividend Ndudi Elumelu, the minority leader in Nigeria’s
taken any actions that payments to its largest shareholder, Nigerian House of Representatives, called for an investi-
hadviolated Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC). gation of NLNG’s finances. Speaking during a
legal norms. In a statement, NLNG said there was no legislative session on July 7, he accused Kyari and
truth to charges that $1.05bn had been taken out Attah of “illegally [tampering] with the funds
of the special federal account that takes receipt at the NLNG dividends account to the tune of
of NNPC’s share of dividends and then distrib- $1.05bn, thereby violating the nation’s appropri-
utes the money among the country’s three tiers ation law.”
of government. It also denied that high-ranking Elumelu, a member of the People’s Dem-
officials – including Mele Kyari, the general man- ocratic Party (PDP) faction from Delta State,
aging director of Nigerian National Petroleum urged the government to act quickly. If Abuja
Corp. (NNPC), and Tony Attah, the managing does not start looking into the matter, he argued,
director of NLNG itself – had played a role in the it may not be able to determine where the funds
removal of funds from the account. have gone.
The consortium asserted in the statement Equity in the NLNG consortium is divided
that it had not taken any actions that violated between NNPC (49%), Royal Dutch Shell (UK/
Nigerian legal norms. It said: “NLNG strictly Netherlands, 25.6%), Total (France, 15%) and
follows extant protocols in the payment of div- Eni (Italy, 10.4%). The consortium has been
idends as value generated from the business and turning out LNG since 1999 and already has
ensures that the process concerning payment of six production trains in place at its gas lique-
dividends to its shareholders is transparent and faction plant on Bonny Island. Together, these
in full compliance with the laws of the Federal trains have a capacity of 22.5mn tonnes per
Republic of Nigeria.” year (tpy).
The statement added: “NLNG’s involvement Earlier this year, NLNG took a final invest-
in the process ends with the payment of such ment decision (FID) on the construction of
dividend. The governance and controls around another production train. The new unit, which
the company’s finances also makes the allega- will be known as Train 7, will push total output
tions against the managing director [Attah] and up by 7.2mn tpy to 30mn tpy, with the new pro-
the GMD [Kyari] an impossible scenario, and duction facility adding 4.2mn tpy and the debot-
therefore members of the public are advised to tlenecking of existing trains contributing 3.4mn
disregard the allegations, as it is totally baseless tpy. ™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 23•July•2020