Omon-Julius Onabu
4 November 2008
Warri — Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan, has said that the people of the state were excited about the Escravos Gas-to-Liquid project and were eagerly awaiting the completion of the project because of the manifold benefits the plant holds.
The governor's statement came on the heels of a similar observation by the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Gas, Senator Osita Izunaso that the committee could not make a categorical statement on the performance so far of Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) which is building the multi-billion dollar plant, because the committee was still studying the interim report and on-the-spot assessment of the company's efforts.
The committee chairman, while concurring with Uduaghan that the Escravos Gas project was "very dear to Nigerians", however indicated that it was too early to say precisely to what extent American oil giant, CNL, has justified the $2.5 billion so far committed into the project, which is expected to be completed over the next two-and-a-half years.
He said though the visit had indicated clearly that serious work was going on at the site, his committee was not in a hurry to make any comments or present recommendations to the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria until it had visited the Oryx of Qatar.
The Oryx of Qatar gas plant, a similar one to the one under review, was said to have been constructed in 2005 at a far lower cost to the $5.9 billion Escravos plant being built by Chevron.
Uduaghan and Izunaso were fielding questions from newsmen after the Governor and some members of the Senate Committee on Gas led by Izunaso had, yesterday, undertaken a tour of the gas project site at Escravos, and, were conducted round to access the ongoing installation work.
The highpoints of the tour by the Governor and top government officials as well as the senators was a visit to the two massive reactors, which the EGTL Project Engineer, Mr. Mick Crawly, said were fabricated in Japan. Each of the reactors has a capacity for 2, 500 tons, the project engineer revealed saying about 80 per cent of the items for installation had either arrived Escravos or on the way to Warri ports from different parts of the world enroute to Escravos. At its recent public hearing in Abuja , the Senate learnt of an astronomical hike in the contract sum of the Escravos Gas-to-Liquid project, from $1.7 billion to $5.9 billion. The upper chamber of the legislators further gathered that the lump-sum project had been converted to reimbursable contract with the possibility of further hike in the amount that would go into completing the project. However, the EGTL Project manager took over an hour to give a detailed account of the money so far committed into the work from the feasibility and consultancy statge to the numerous purchases and fabrication made in dollars explain the Briefly
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