The Chairman of Brass Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, Mr. Jackson Gaius-Obaseki and other experts in the petroleum industry have blamed the Federal Government for the collapse and failures recorded in the multi-billion dollars Brass Liquefied Natural Gas and Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas, OKLNG, projects.
Gaius-Obaseki; Mr. Alex Neyin,a former Chairman of the Board of the Society of Petroleum Explorationists, SPE and Mr. Yemi Oke, an Associate Professor, Energy Resources Law, at the University of Lagos, UNILAG, were speaking at an interview on NTA.
Also present among the discussants were the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mr. Maikanti Baru.
The Federal Government had spent over $1.2 billion on the Brass LNG project and about $600 million on the OKLNG projects which started in 2003 and 2005 respectively.
Gaius-Obaseki stated that the decision by the Federal Government to undertake the three LNG projects — Nigeria LNG Train 7, Olokola and Brass LNG — at the same time, led to the failure to complete any of the projects several years after their conception.
He said, “In my view, at the best of time for Nigeria, we do not have the resources —human and financial — to pursue three LNG projects at the same time. That is where the problem came from. Political or no political, all the projects would still had happened, if one came after the other.”
He argued that the country does not have the resources to pursue three LNG projects at the same time, stating that the government should have concentrated in finishing one of the projects before undertaking another.
He maintained that if efforts had been focused on completing the Brass LNG project, OKLNG would have followed and would have been completed.
Point of return for Brass; $1.15bn spent so far
He said, “Everybody seems to have keyed in that Brass seems to be the next project to focus on. It is important to also know that I believe Brass have reached the point of no return. The fundamentals, the reasons are still there, valid today and you have expended $1.15 billion already; expectations are high; communities are giving land already. Really, we shouldn’t look anywhere else. Complete Brass, let OKLNG follow.”
