Nigeria’s LNG shops for $10bn funding for expansion Ken

Kenneth Afor with agency report

Africa’s biggest natural gas plant, Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) is in a quest for a $10 billion loan from domestic and international lenders to expand its operation with a seventh train.

This was revealed by Tony Attah, chief executive officer, NLNG.

The company had earlier issued a letter of intent (LOI) for the Train 7 engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) which SCD was chosen to execute the project according to Attah.

“With the signing of the LOI we hope that by the end of October a Final Investment Decision will be signed for Train 7. This will ensure we attain our ambition of increasing our production by 35 percent,” Nigeria LNG said on Twitter.

Attah, however, mentioned that $2 billion will be sourced from ten domestic lenders while the remaining $8 billion will be from foreign banks.

“We have done the financial market pitch to know who has capacity,” Attah added.

According to a news coy wire, $7 billion is expected to be utilized for the project while $3 billion for the rest of the construction of pipelines and installation to service new facilities and other gas projects.

Meanwhile, the country’s LNG is very much aware of the rising demand of gas export to countries including Jordan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.

However, Nigeria, being among the world’s largest producer of natural gas the sector is being controlled by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) with 49 percent equity followed by Shell with 25 percent, while, France’s Total and Italy’s Eni SpA has 15 and 10.4 percent shares respectively.