‘NLNG amendment is double taxation for investors’

Making amendments to the Nigeria LNG Limited, NLNG Act would lead to double taxation since gas suppliers to NLNG already pay the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) three per cent levy.
  
The General Manager, Production, NLNG, Tayo Oginni, who made this observation at a news conference in Bonny, Rivers State, said the development is inimical to the progress of the petroleum industry especially when Nigeria should be developing its vast gas resources and attracting foreign direct investments into the country.   
  
He noted that after nearly 30 years of false attempts to start the LNG project, it was the enactment of the NLNG Act that made it possible to establish NLNG, and subsequently took the Final Investment Decisions (FIDs) for all the six trains.

This earned the country the reputation of being the fast growing LNG project in the world, adding that the milestone would be watered down by attempts to change the rules of the game built into the Act.
  
Recounting his experience with the NLNG project, he said the loss of hope experienced prior to the incorporation of NLNG is again manifesting in NLNG’s bid to expand its production facility with Trains 7 and 8, due to lack of investment in the upstream sector to guarantee gas supplies.
  
He called on the Federal Government to preserve the sanctity of agreement in the NLNG Act, and pass the Petroleum Industry Bill to spur exponential growth in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry.
   
“The Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) Fiscal Incentives, Guarantees and Assurances Act (NLNG Act) allowed investments to flow into the country. It provided investors the confidence that any agreement entered into would be respected and preserved. To amend the Act will not help Nigeria, NLNG and its hopes for expansion. It will erode investors’ confidence that the Act provided in the first place,” he added.
  
He argued that the imminent requirement of over $1 billion yearly investment in the upstream for the next few years to guarantee steady gas supply for the sustenance of the NLNG’s Trains 1 – 6 over the contracted life of the plant will be impossible with the amendment.