Page 12 - GLNG Week 29 2020
P. 12
GLNG AFRICA GLNG
NLNG responds to MP’s
charges of corruption
PROJECTS & THE Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium has and simply untrue.”
COMPANIES denied allegations of unauthorised withdraw- The consortium issued its statement after
als 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). gation of NLNG’s finances. Speaking during a
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- The consortium
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 asserted in the
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 statement that
removal of funds from the account. have gone.
The consortium asserted in the statement Equity in the NLNG consortium is divided it had not taken
that it had not taken any actions that violated between NNPC (49%), Royal Dutch Shell (UK/ any actions that
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 violated Nigerian
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- legal norms.
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 out-
tions against the managing director [Attah] and put up by 7.2mn tpy to 30mn tpy, with the new
the GMD [Kyari] an impossible scenario, and production facility adding 4.2mn tpy and the
therefore members of the public are advised to debottlenecking of existing trains contributing
disregard the allegations, as it is totally baseless 3.4mn tpy.
P12 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 24•July•2020
