The Nigerian governments and Nigerians have benefitted about $50 billion from the operations of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) limited since it commenced operations over 10 years ago, just as the company has helped to reduce gas flaring from 65 percent to about 11 percent, BusinessDay has learnt.
The benefits are in the form of dividends, taxes paid to governments and contracts awarded to Nigerian business concerns.
Additionally, NLNG has concluded plans with two multinational ship builders, Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung, to train 600 Nigerians in the art of ship building so that they could take full charge in its operations in the nearest future. Already, 60 Nigerians are in South Korea undergoing the training.
Babs Omotowa, managing director, NLNG, disclosed this at the presentation of the 2014 facts and figures on the company.
Omotowa, while restating the commitment of the company to sustainable development through human capital and business development, said as a world-class company with vision to help build a better Nigeria, facts and figures on NLNG was another opportunity for the company to openly and transparently share information on its operations and engage key stakeholder groups with a view to fostering free flow of information.
“NLNG initiated a $1 billion vendor finance scheme in 2013, which affords local business access to low-cost finance to encourage local content development and enable growth,” said Omotowa.
“More recently, the company also announced a $12 million University Support Programme to build and upgrade and equip engineering laboratories in six universities across Nigeria’s geo-political zones to boost teaching and research,” he said.
According to him, the company had so far paid about $27 billion to its shareholders as dividend and had purchased gas worth $23 billion from gas producers since inception.
The company, whose total assets have hit $14 billion, has also spent over $10 billon on local contracts it had awarded to Nigerians. It contributes about 4 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP).
NLNG currently pays over N200 billion to the government as company income tax, over N6 billion to Rivers State government, while Bonny Local Government also carts away about N66 million as revenue coming from the company on annual basis.
On the 600 Nigerians to be trained by Hyundai Heavy Industries and Samsung, Omotowa said it had become very important to train Nigerians who could be useful in ship building because of the increased activities of NLNG in the shipping subsector.
“We want to be able to develop the local content so that Nigerians can take over the management of the company fully in future,” he said.
The NLNG boss said the company was worried over the shortage of needed skills in the various sectors of the oil and gas industry, which was why it intervened in some areas that are critical to the economy.
SOLA BELLO
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