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‘Halliburton’s ban can’t stall
NLNG’
By
Charles Okonji
Senior Business Correspondent,
Lagos
The
Federal Government’s ban on its agencies and parastatals from awarding
contracts to Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited would not affect the
expansion of train six of the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG).
The
out-going Managing Director of NLNG, Dr. Andrew Jamieson, stated this,
recently. He said, though the contract for the $1.6 billion expansion of NLNG
project was awarded to the TSKJ consortium, which is made up of a Halliburton
subsidiary, Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) and three partners -Technip of
France, Snamprogetti of Italy and Japan Gas Corporation - the project
would still be executed as scheduled.
Jamieson,
who was reacting to the recent report that the contract for the construction of
the new production line, which was awarded to the TSKJ consortium, said the
Federal Government’s ban on awarding contracts to Halliburton Energy
Services would not throw the train six project into chaos.
Federal
Government had banned further contract awards to Halliburton Energy Services
not necessarily because of the theft of two radioactive devices from the
company, but because of what the Federal Government classified as the
uncooperative attitude of Halliburton with investigators.
The
NLNG managing director said: “The ban on Halliburton Energy Services will
not affect the train six of NLNG. Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited
is not part of the consortium that is handling the contract of the NLNG’s
expansion project. Though Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), which is a subsidiary
of Halliburton, is among the TSKJ consortium that got the contract, the ban of
Halliburton Energy Services Nigeria Limited, another subsidiary of Halliburton,
will not have any effect on the contract execution.”
On
July 30 this year, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with its
joint venture partners, Shell, Total and ENI, signed the Final Investment
Decision (FID) for the train six of NLNG in London.
From
the agreement, $1.6 billion was needed to fund the sixth production line for
the gas project, an effort that would help to raise the NLNG’s gas
production from 14 million tones to 22 million tones on completion by the third
quarter of 2007.
Though
the Federal Government’s ban on Halliburton Energy Services was silent on
TSKJ consortium, government’s expected revenues from the sale of gas were
put at about $4 billion by the year 2007, when train six would have come on
stream.
The Secretary to the Federal Government, Ufot Ekaette, while
announcing the ban on Halliburton Energy Services, stated: “The Federal
Government has decided to place an embargo on the patronage of Halliburton
Energy Services Limited arising from its negligent conduct, which led to the
loss of two ionising sources from Nigeria in 2002.”
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