The Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited has generated over $50billion for the Nigerian economy since October 1999, when it exported its first LNG cargo.
Speaking at the company’s book launch on ‘2014 Facts and Figures’ at the weekend, the Managing Director of the company, Mr. Babs Omotowa, said the company exported its 1,000th cargo in December 2006, 2,000th cargo in October 2010 and 3,000th in January this year.
He said in diversifying the country’s revenue base and monetising gas resources in Nigeria, NLNG now owns $14 billion of assets in Bonny Island of Rivers State.
According to him, the company paid $13 billion in dividends with another $11 billion earned as feed gas sales revenue, while over $10 billion expenditure was spent in the local economy on goods, services and salaries of thousands of staff employed.
He also stated that the company paid a corporate income tax of over N200 billion yearly, while the Rivers State Government earns over N6 billion yearly from personal income taxes.
Omotowa further disclosed that Bonny Local Government Area of the state earns over N88 million yearly as tenement rate from NLNG.
He noted that the company had been the arrow-ahead in the federal government’s quest to eliminate gas flaring and to derive value from the country’s 187 trillion cubic feet of a proven gas reserves.
“By so doing, this will accounts for seven per cent of the global LNG supplies which used to be 10per cent. Nigeria LNG’s near term expansion plans which include a construction of seventh train to complement the existing six- train structure that when in full operation, will up the ante of the company’s total production capacity to 30 million tonnes per annum ( MTPA) of LNG. Over the years, the company has committed to a 67 per cent increase in volume supplied to 250,000 tonnes of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). And this has increased the benefit in environmental (deforestation), health (respiratory), kerosene cost about $3.5billion subsidy and increase in investments and job creation (improvement in cooking gas value),” he explained.
