An Ad-hoc Committee of the House of Representatives has begin investigation into the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas NLNG train 7 project assuring the public and other stakeholders of a through investigation that would give proper value for money.
Chairman of the House Ad-hoc Committee on NLNG probe Hon.Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe in an opening remarks said that the nation must take the issue of gas flaring more seriously.
According to him, the level of flared gas in the country is now at an all time high and the need to reduce it to the barest minimum had become very imperative.
He said: “we are investigating the non inclusion of waste management 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 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 viz:the component of it that has to do with waste management in the train 7 gas project”.
“It’s quite interactive and very revealing. I think we are making progress. Local content component is not really our mandate but as a parliament, we ‘ll ensure that Local Content Act is complied with”.
Fielding questions at the end of the probe on whether the International Oil Companies are under the purview of the probe panel, he said: “basically the issue of sludge disposal is mainly with the IOCs. They generate a lot of sludge from their operations and tomorrow (i. e today) we are talking some IOCs including AGIP and a few others”.
“On whether we ‘ve grey areas to look at, we take all of them. Some of them are reasonably compliant to international best practices and some are not.
We ‘ve looked at their submissions and ‘ll take take them up”.
The lawmaker and other committee members later requested that all the documents relating to the train 7 project implementation be made available to it with 72 hours for a thorough probe.
But the NLNG team represented by the General Manager Government Relations Mrs Fatai Williams said that the percentage of flared gas in the company has reduced considerably.
She told the lawmakers that that the company takes the business of gas flaring very seriously and added that they have two ISO certifications as evidenceof compliance to global best practices.
She further said that she was satisfied with the very interactive nature of the probe session and promised that all the requested documents by the committee and will be made available before the end of the probe.