THE Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas, NLNG, has been issued a 72-hour ultimatum by the House of Representatives to submit documents on the waste disposal component of the final Investment decision in the NLNG Train-7 Gas Project.
This directive was handed down by the House to the NLNG in a memo titled “Ad-hoc Committee on the Investigation of the Non-Inclusion of Waste Management/Disposal of Sludge in the NLNG Train-7 Gas Project and Other Infringement by Oil Multinationals”.
Agom Jarigbe Agom, a member representing Ogoja/Yala constituency at the investigative hearing said that the NLNG had failed to submit its financial investment documents.
He said the mandate of the committee was to investigate the environmental challenges and non-inclusion of the waste management disposal in the NLNG gas project.
“We are investigating the non-inclusion of waste mgt on the NLNG train 7 gas project. We had earlier on asked them for the financial investment documents. Our concerns are environmental hazards and non-inclusion of waste management disposal in the NLNG gas project.
“That’s why we invited them and we ‘ve given them an ultimatum of 72 hours to provide the final investment documents; the component of it that has to do with waste management in the train 7 gas project,” he said.
The Train 7 project is expected to increase NLNG’s production capacity by 35 percent from 22 million tonnes per annum to 30 million tonnes per annum.
The project also involves building a new Common Liquefaction Unit, CLU, designed to collect excess treated gas from the existing trains and process it into LNG including building a new export jetty
“Local content component is not really our mandate but as a parliament, we will ensure that the Local Content Act is complied with. The multinational generate a lot of sludge from their operations and tomorrow we are talking to some International Oil Companies including AGIP and a few others.
“We have grey areas to look at, we take all of them. Some of them are reasonably compliant with international best practices and some are not. We’ve looked at their submissions and will take them up,” he said.
Eyono Fatayi-Williams, General Manager, External Relations and Sustainable Development, at the NLNG said the company will make available the necessary documents on its waste disposal management.
“We had a very interactive session. They requested some documents on our waste disposal management and will provide them,” she said.
Amos Abba is a journalist with the International Center for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, who believes that courageous investigative reporting is the key to social justice and accountability in the society.