Dwindling Investments May Pull Nigeria off Position As 4th World’s Largest LNG Exporter  

With no new investments, indications have emerged that Nigeria may possibly drop from her current position of 4th world’s largest exporter of LNG to 10th position by 2020.

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria LNG Limited,Babs Omotowa, has raised the alarm following Nigeria’s dwindling investments in Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG.Speaking at the April Lunch organised by the Petroleum Club in Lagos recently, Omotowa, who said NLNG had earned $90 billion revenue since 1999, also declared that NLNG elevated Nigeria to number four exporter of LNG in the world, after Qatar, Malaysia and Australia.

Citing the data on the global exports of LNG in 2014, Omotowa said Nigeria was ahead of other world LNG giants, including Indonesia, Trinidad, Algeria, Russia, Oman, Yemen, Brunei, UAE, Peru, Equatorial Guinea, Norway, Papua New Guinea, US, Egypt and Angola.

Omotowa, however said with no new investments to support Nigeria’s position in the global LNG market, the country’s position would possibly drop to 10th by 2020.

He said while his company earned $90 billion revenue since 1999, $33 billion was paid to the federal government as dividend, $6 billion as taxes and $21 billion for joint venture gas purchase.

The NLNG boss noted that his company’s contribution as Company Income Tax and dividend in 2014 and 2015 constituted 14 per cent of the country’s annual budget.