Nigeria’s Brass LNG to begin construction

Brass LNG Limited will begin construction at designated sites of the project on Brass Island, Bayelsa State in November. The project, on completion, will produce 10 mm tons of liquefied natural gas per annum. This is also equal to Trains One, Two and Three of LNG outputs from Nigeria LNG Limited.
This development is sequel to the approval from the company's Board of Directors at its London meeting that the firm should commence early site works as contained in its production schedule.

The company's shareholders also took some decisions that would radically propel the early execution of the project. One of such decisions, according to investigations, is the approval of management reshuffle to prepare the company for the challenges of the next phase of the project.
Specifically, ENI International has been mandated to produce managing director of the company with effect from November 15, 2007. This position has been occupied by the nominee of ConocoPhillips, Mr Martin Hutchinson. Under the new plan, a new position -- general manager, Brass Facilities -- has been created. This is to be supervised by a nominee of ConocoPhillips.

Similarly, Total, another joint venture partner in the project, is to be saddled with the responsibility of overseeing the company's commercial ventures while the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) would be in charge of human resources and administration, and external relations. A participant at the meetings said apart from approving the new structure for the company, the directors also resolved two other major issues of gas supply and funding.
"For gas, we are going to have the product locally. Brass is unique not only because of its commercial viability, but it is a project that is sited in the Niger Delta region of the country and it has also improved the quality of the community as a free trade zone status has been approved for the project. It has also been given an airstrip that will improve transportation to and from Brass.”

Chairman of the company's Board, Dr Jackson Gaius-Obaseki, told what also achieved was to reposition it for the next phase. He said in the spirit of that, positions needed to be switched where they were necessary.
According to him: "We activated a provision of the rotational headship in the shareholders' agreement. ConocoPhillips and its nominee, who has been managing director of the company have done very well in the achievement of milestone-1. The next phase is technical and its technological requirement is very heavy. The COP being the licensor, the decision is that the COP should be allowed to man the technical aspect of the project as will be required in the next phase, while another shareholder takes care of the administration or management of the firm. And the obvious choice became ENI since they are on ground. And it is true that Hutchinson was fired."

Corroborating Obaseki's position, the outgoing managing director said what has taken place at the management level was part of natural progression.
"We are moving from the engineering phase to the project execution phase and this means movement of personnel here and there. And to me, this makes a lot of sense. What has happened in the switching of positions between COP and ENI International is an activation of the rotational clause of the shareholders agreement for the project which was signed in 2003.”

"So as we move into the next phase, it is important we bring in personnel with requisite experience to match the phase.”
"I am grateful to the share holders for allowing me almost four years to drive through with the milestone," he concluded.