nlng - the magazine 2010 edition 1

Ann Pickard, Shell’s Regional Executive Vice President for Sub Sahara Africa

Patrick Olinma, NLNG’s General Manager Commercial Division

T H E M A G A Z I N E

VOL 9 NO 1 2010

t h E I N h O U S E M A G A Z I N E O F N I G E R I A L N G L I M I t E D

IT’S A FEAT.

NLNG =6 Trains +

$12 billion investment +16 Sales & Purchase

Agreements

Dance performance by the IjoDee Dancers DurIng the meetIng of stakeholDers of nIgerIa’s lIterary communIty In february 2010

2 NLNG - The Magazine

NLNG - The Magazine is the corporate magazine of Nigeria LNG Limited.The views and opinions within the magazine however do not necessarily reflect those of the Nigeria LNG Limited or its management.

Editor-in-Chief: Siene Allwell-BrownManaging Editor: Ifeanyi MbanefoEditor: Yemi AdeyemiDeputy Editor: Elkanah ChawaiWriters: Dan Daniel, Emeka Agbayi, Emma Nwatu, Glory Joe, and Anne-Marie Palmer-Ikuku

All correspondence to: Yemi Adeyemi, Editor, NLNG The Magazine, Nigeria LNG Limited, C&C Building, Plot 1684, Sanusi Fafunwa Street, Victoria Island, PMB 12774, Lagos, Nigeria. Phones: 234 1 2624190-4, 2624556-60. e-mail: [email protected] consultancy, design and production: Taijo Wonukabe Limited, 2 Anifowoshe Close, Surulere. Tel 01-6283223, 08023130829. e-mail [email protected], web http://www.taijowonukabe.comPrinted in Nigeria by PrintPro Projects Limited, 2 Anifowoshe Close, Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria.

Ann, Patrick and LNG“More than any other occupation, business is a con-tinual dealing with the future; a continual calcula-tion, an instinctive exercise in foresight.”

- Henry Luce (founder, TiMe, ForTune and LiFe Magazines)

the business world came to terms with these necessities as it tried to find its way out of the global economic up-heaval that had beset it in the last few

years. nigeria also took the heat as it grappled with what had come to seriously threaten its mainstay of oil and gas. It tried to attain eco-nomic stability as it dealt with the niger Delta amnesty agreement, the petroleum Industry bill, the gas master plan and many other instruments being put together to address the situation.

In the nlng fold, we fortified ourselves with human energy to en-sure that we remained on top of the situation. Thanks also to nlng’s structure that gives us the wonderful opportunity to tap, as it were, the wealth of expertise reputable shareholders can bring to the project.

one of such assets is our man responsible for nlng’s trade and commercial activities. patrick olinma, seconded from total, is the general manager commercial Division. In this issue, he provides a crisp bird’s eye view of the lng market, its current state and his expectations for the future. he also provides us with an insight into the thinking of major players in the market, how they view the economic downturn and what inspires their investment decisions.

some say we should count ourselves exceptionally lucky to get this rare interview with shell’s number one man (sorry, woman) in sub-saharan africa, anne pickard. to carry Fortune magazine and cnn’s label of “the bravest woman in oil” is no mean feat for anyone – man or woman. anne opens up on what makes her tick and on her experiences in africa. as she moves on to oversee and develop yet another of shell’s investments, this time in australia, she also has a few things to say about her love for the business of oil and (espe-cially) gas and her hopes for the future of the industry in nigeria.

again, The prizes….If there has been one thing that has received so much attention

in the science and literary communities in the last few months, it is the nigeria prizes for science and literature. In this issue, we bring you what is new about the prizes.

have a good read.

Siene Allwell-Brown

from the editor-in-chief

p28

Cover interview: 5 secrets of nLng’s success 4interview: ‘i have the best job in shell’ 14

Features Public Presentation: nok out, publicly 22feature: new grounds in treating sleeping sickness

-by Jonathan nok 24interview: ‘no more excuses, write now’

-Professor Banjo 26feature: conversations on Literature Prize et al 28gallery: grand award night ‘09 pictorially 30

Short takes Manpowered 10dd goes, dd comes 12

p4 p14 p26olInma pIckarD banjo

NLNG - The Magazine 3

Contents

Don’t judge a man by his voice. Especially, when that man is Patrick Olinma, whose voice rarely rises above a whisper at those equally rare occasions when he speaks. Yet, when it’s time for tough decisions, his colleagues in the Senior Management Team often turn to him for guid-ance.

Olinma brings to management two rare qualities – principle and practical (please read commonsense) approach to issues.

And as one would expect from a well-groomed lawyer, he is clear and concise, and assembles his thoughts well. Olinma combines superb industry knowledge with elegant prose, and often offers the crucial, missing piece in any debate.

Olinma, who has a strong track record in

closing complex deals, was seconded in 2007 to Nigeria LNG Limited from Total Nigeria, where he was Deputy General Manager, LNG Commercial. In Total, he was lead counsel in the negotiation of various production shar-ing contracts and joint venture oil and gas agreements. He led, in 2005, the 2.5 million tonnes/year LNG Sales & Purchase Agreement negotiations with Suez LNG for the Yemen LNG Project. For NLNG’s Train 7 Plus project, Patrick was responsible for the 3.25 million tonnes/year LNG Sales & Purchase Agreements with BG Gas Marketing Limited and Occidental Energy Marketing Inc.

He told Elkanah Chawai, Dan Daniel and Glory Joe why Nigeria LNG Limited is a suc-cess story – and more.


c o v e r I n t e r v I e w

5of nlng’s successsecrets


In the LNG business, can we describe NLNG’s deals in 16 SPAs as a success?

yes, I suppose we can definitely say so, especially if you look at the worth of those spas. roughly, our portfolio of contracts is worth between $8 and $10 billion a year depending on the performance of the price markers (brent/oil products or gas). on top of that is the fact that we have six trains, making us one of the largest lng companies in the world, especially because we have all our six trains in one location. I think nlng will rank in the first four or five lng companies in the world. If you look at the Qataris, their trains are divided between rasgas and Qatargas. If you also look at malaysia and Indonesia, their trains are divided between different projects. but, here, we have six trains in one location, $12 billion investment in one location, excluding the ships, and 16 spas all consolidated in one company. that, I think, is a huge achievement, and in fact, without doubt, the single biggest investment on any one project in africa. How has the company fared so far?

It has done very well both in terms of financials and project development. It has gone from two trains in the base project to six trains in 10 years. so, I will say that it has been a very successful company. although, some will argue that it has had the good fortune of having a very competitive feed gas price and a 10-year tax holiday, but all in all, it has been a very successful project. the financials bear that out.How much is an SPA worth?

It depends. It is difficult to put a number on the spas because it is all about the volume involved and what the price is indexed to. there are some big volume spas and there are some small volume spas. the right approach is to look at the spas in terms of the portfolio. If you put all of the spas in one basket and look at it as a portfolio, it is worth about 330 to 350 lng cargoes a year and if you take an average cargo price range of about $20 to $30 million, that is a portfolio that is easily worth between $8 billion to $10 billion a year inclusive of the ngl cargoes. that is significant and is about the numbers you see as our turnover.Do 16 SPAs represent deals with 16 different companies?

no, not exactly. we have 11 buyers now and amongst those, we have some who have more than one contract. shell western has three contracts with us; gas natural has two contracts; and galp gas natural has three contracts. those are three com-panies in a different class for the reason that they have more than one contract each. some bought into the base project and when we launched train 3, they bought into that as well. some others did trains 4 and 5 as well as train 6. basically, whenever we launch new volumes, counter-parties buy and then there is a new spa to represent that transaction because the market would have changed from the

time we did the last train. that is why we have 11 buyers but 16 different spas.The average life of an LNG project is somewhere around 30 years and we have locked down contracts for 20 years. Does this mean that we are trying to lock down guaranteed sales for the life time of that project?

the whole idea is to guarantee that the project sponsors recover the huge investment they have made upfront. If you do the cash flow economics for 20 years on the spas and it meets your price assumptions, it means you will need some 15 to 20 years for pay back and to make some margin. so after paying for every thing in 20 years, the rest will be the margin. typically, what happens is that after 20 years, 25 years for some contracts, if you can still guarantee feed gas supply, you extend the contracts, because the train is not going to be shut down or scrapped after 20/25 years. look at brunei lng. It is one of the oldest – since 1970 – and it is still producing. they have extended their contracts and de-bottlenecked the trains and put in new compres-sors and the facility has become almost like a brand new lng project.What accounts for NLNG’s success in the business of selling gas?

there are some key success factors. the most

important, from my point of view, is the alignment between the upstream gas suppliers and the mid-stream that is nlng. our gas suppliers, but for one, are also our shareholders and it is a significant key success factor for nlng. It means that we are sure of our feed gas supply except if something cata-strophic happens. If you have an lng plant without feed gas as you have seen in the last one year, it means nothing. the fact that they have interest in nlng means that they will do everything within their power to make sure that they supply us feed gas to keep the business going.

the other part of the equation is that we have been fortunate that these shareholders have also now become lng buyers. they have completely aligned with us along the value chain. they are our shareholders, our gas suppliers and now they are buyers of lng from us. In every way you look at it, they will never do anything to hurt our interest. that is helping our business because when we have prob-lems like we have had in the past one year (a major force majeure) it is a lot easier to manage it when the buyer is a shareholder. when you call total, shell or eni and tell them a cargo is not coming because we have problems, they will understand because they are also gas suppliers; so they know exactly what the problem is before we call them. that has been very helpful. Imagine if it wasn’t so, having to call 11 different buyers and none is sympathetic at all. I think the alignment of the same compa-nies along the value chain - from upstream as gas suppliers, to midstream as our shareholders and in fact further downstream as lng buyers, have been very important in terms of matters that have made nlng very successful.

another factor is our location. If you consider that we are located within the atlantic basin, although we may not be as advantageously located as countries on the top of africa like egypt or algeria but we also have the advantage that we can play both markets, atlantic basin and asian-pacific markets, the two big divides in the lng world. so we can sell into europe, north america and increas-ingly, we are selling into asia and this is a premium market, that is, japan, korea, taiwan and china. our location makes that possible. If we were located some other place, it may be very difficult to do this.

In a way, we have also been fortunate with the markets. we have good contracts which, to a large extent, have been able to track the market well. sometimes you have contracts that are completely out of tune with the market. we have a portfolio of contracts that is easily able to track the market, especially in north america where the market is very fluid and there is a transparent price marker, the nymeX henry hub. whatever movement there is in respect of the henry hub, we are able to get the benefit.

we have also been fortunate that over 70 per


The most important success factor, from

my point of view, is the alignment between the upstream gas suppliers

and the midstream, that is nLng


cent of our portfolio is tied to brent and oil products and this means that whatever movement we have in terms of brent going up, we are able to get the ben-efit even though, sometimes, there is a lag between the movement of brent and our contract prices. but largely, I will say that we have a very robust portfolio which has made it possible for us to get the benefit of increase in the value of gas in all of the major markets.In terms of critical factors, are you also taking cognisance of the security situation around the region?

well, that is one of the problems we are having, especially in the last one year in which the issue of regional security has had a more significant impact on our business. as you know, we are still under force majeure from soku which started in november 2008 and took out about 40% of our feed gas supply. If you look at the impact of that on our bottom-line as of end november 2009, we have lost about 113 cargos of lng alone. when you add condensates and lpg cargoes and you consider that a cargo of lng is about $20 million we would have lost well over $2 billion just from lng as a result of the force majeure. the security situation in the niger Delta has no doubt had a significant impact on our business and still continues to. One of the challenges facing the company is gas supply as you have just mentioned. What is the company’s strategy in managing this challenge?

that is a challenging issue. as you know, we are not in the upstream business. a lot of things are being done but these are matters being handled by our upstream gas suppliers. gas supply has become a very sensitive matter, especially with the government’s position that domestic gas supply is its priority. a lot of things will depend on gas suppliers meeting their domestic gas supply obligations.

and, quite frankly, I think it is a legitimate aspiration for the government to insist on having gas for the domestic market, especially given that we are a country of 140 million people and our electricity generating capacity is less than 5,000 megawatts. this is clearly not an acceptable situation and I think the government is right in saying that we need to sort out the domestic gas supply situation, especially in respect of gas supply for power generation.

we are the fifth largest exporter of lng in the world and the sixth largest exporter of crude oil, yet we are operating at less than 5,000 megawatts of electricity for the entire nation when, in fact, one nuclear plant alone in japan produces 8,000 megawatts of electricity. I think it is quite legitimate for the government to insist on this. so, in terms of strategy, what we and the gas industry are saying to the government is that there are more than enough reserves to meet both export and domestic gas requirements.

however, in meeting the domestic supply requirements, there are a few issues that need to be

resolved. these will include commerciality issues and infrastructure development. these issues are far from resolved now. with hope, some of these mat-ters will be resolved in the petroleum Industry bill that is currently before the national assembly. I will say that, to a large extent, our gas supply matter is something that is beyond our control because we are not an upstream player. so, it is up to the upstream players to negotiate what makes economic sense for them so that they can develop the gas projects to supply feed gas to projects like ourselves. on our side, there has been a renegotiation of what we pay for feed gas. so right now, what we pay for feed gas is very competitive and that should enable some of the planned projects to be developed provided that all other related issues have been sorted out in a manner that is satisfactory to the industry and the government.You mentioned that we are quite a major player in the Atlantic basin market and we have dabbled into the Pacific Basin as well. Most of NLNG SPAs are concentrated in the Atlantic Basin. Do we have SPAs in the Pacific Basin market?

no, we don’t. all of our spas were sold into the atlantic basin. at the time our spas were negoti-ated, it was not really feasible to supply into the asia-pacific basin from the atlantic basin. a lot depends on price and with the prices we had in

asia-pacific then, it was not economically feasible to sell a cargo from the atlantic to the pacific. what has made it possible today is that asia-pacific has suddenly become a premium market. with today’s prices in that market, it is feasible to do the long distance shipping and still make money. on the average, to deliver to japan, you will be looking at well over 50 days round trip in terms of voyage time. when you compare that with a north american round trip of about 30 days, it is then obvious that if the price is not right, you can’t make that trip and make any money.What is the forecast for that market? Is NLNG looking at something fruitful it can tap into?

I think it is a bit challenging now,because the global economic recession has affected that region significantly. Industrial production in japan and korea has fallen by about 20% and, of course, that has impact on demand for energy generally. same is true for taiwan. It was like that for china, but it has rebounded well and it is growing again in double digits. that market, I believe, will look good again in the longer term, but in the shorter term, there is oversupply, especially if you look at all the new lng projects that have started up. a significant amount of the new volumes will go into asia-pacific, especially from the Qataris and from yemen as well as from australia. It makes a lot of economic sense to channel those volumes to asia-pacific.

In the short term, that market is definitely going to be oversupplied and we have seen the impact in terms of the number of diversions we have been able to do from the atlantic basin to asia-pacific. but in the longer term, the world economy will hopefully recover and the gDps will grow again and maybe the market will become tight on supply and we should be able to deliver more cargoes to that market. You did mention cargo diversions. What does it involve to divert a cargo, especially when you have SPAs in the Atlantic Basin and nothing in the Asia-Pacific?

basically, what it means is that when we look at the original destination in an spa, it may be europe or north america and if we believe we can get a better deal in asia-pacific, we agree with our buyers on redirecting the cargo to the market where we can get a better deal and we split the additional revenue which we make by doing so. we then go to the euro-pean market which was meant to be the original destination of the cargo and buy replacement gas from that market because there is ample supply in that market. alternatively, we may find another lng cargo from the portfolio of the buyer which we can use to backfill for the original delivery which has been diverted to asia. this is the so called arbitrage between markets. the incremental value is shared between the buyer and ourselves.In your own estimation, what is going to be the pattern of LNG plants’ construction? What is


secretsWe have also been

fortunate that over 70 per cent of our portfolio is tied to Brent and oil

products


going to be the impact of the recession on the new LNG plants coming up? Is there going to be a reduction or are investors going to wait to watch the market?

I think if you look at the market historically, there are always supply windows. If you look at all the lng coming into the market at this time, it comes from projects that went to final Investment Decision (fID) four to five years ago. they are filling the supply gap projected at that time. now the market is projecting that from 2015 onwards, there will be another supply gap and so projects currently targeting fID will be looking at that window. If we take fID between now and the next two years, the idea will be to meet the supply gap which the market sees beyond 2015. that is normally the way it works. so. there will always be new projects that are looking at market and targeting future supply windows. this will always be the case and the pat-tern is unlikely to change. With crude oil, they say that the Sweet Brent is richer in quality than other crude oil. Does this apply to LNG where LNG differs in quality across plants in the world?

It is not exactly like the oil trade. there is the saying that “gas is fungible” meaning that gas is gas and it is the same and that differences don’t really matter. but that is not 100% correct. there are still quality issues. If you look at us. for instance, they tend not to be able to take very rich/hot lng and our lng is quite rich. so we have some quality limitations selling into us. however, we can go to lake charles (in the us) because they can handle our quality of lng. the reason is that in us, they have strict pipeline gas quality limitations especially in terms of heat content. If our lng is above that heat content limitation, they can’t take it unless the terminal has a stripping facility, in which case it becomes an opportunity, where they can strip it of additional liquids and then sell the liquids separately for additional revenue. however, you need to first of all invest in the infrastructure to be able to strip the liquids. whereas in asia, they tend to favour hot, rich lng because their equipment standardisation has been done in such a manner that it can take rich lng. when you have lng that is not too rich, the buyers in asia will have to buy and inject nitrogen into the lng to increase the heat content so that it can go into the system. that is about as much as the quality distinction you will find in the lng business. so depending on where you sell your lng, rich lng can be a premium product or a burden.What is the company’s game plan in the face of economic recession and steep decline in energy price?

we are lucky that over 70% of our portfolio is indexed to brent and oil products, as I said previ-ously. therefore, if brent is going up, our gas prices are also going up. to that extent, we are somewhat

protected in terms of pricing, for now, because today brent is going up again. but our buyers do have a problem with that, because they are saying that they are in a depressed market; that their econ-omies are depressed and for some reason, brent is going up; they pay us a price that is linked to brent, but is higher than what gas is worth in the market and that is why we have so many price reviews at the moment. they say they are losing money.

but, you know, we need to have a sensible dialogue on that and see whether what they are claiming is true and see how we can adjust that. we are a bit exposed in the us because it is a gas on gas competition scenario. the gas is indexed to henry hub which is the marker and it is pretty low at the moment, so we have 30% of our portfolio exposed. luckily, we are still able to divert some of those cargoes to asia and increasingly we are now also able to divert some of those cargoes to europe where we get the brent-related pricing. therefore, the portfolio is still robust. we need to wait and see the outcome of the various price reviews that the buyers have launched. we have also launched some reviews where we think the price is below the market. but at the end of the day, we should be fine, I believe.Are you saying whatever we are doing right now can withstand any economic instability?

I don’t know that with any certainty. It depends

on what the instability is. but we have been able to weather the recession and we haven’t done badly at all. we took a major hit in the first quarter of 2009 when brent went down but luckily, we had what we call the lag effect in our contracts because they are indexed, not just to monthly brent prices, but also to six months rolling average and in some cases nine months. so, even when brent is down for one month, we still have the benefit of a lag for some months. but we never know what will happen in the future, no matter how well one has prepared.

what is important is to have a diversified portfolio where some contracts are indexed to oil and some to gas, as well as supplying to different markets. that way, when one is down, you will get the benefit of the other. but when both go down, then you will have to ride it out like everyone else.Are you currently in any negotiations in terms of price reviews?

we are in several negotiations. we have a lot going on at the moment and it is not surprising given the global recession, long-term contract prices going above spot prices and with the fall in demand in most industrialised economies. It is not unreasonable for the buyers to want to review the price they pay, but they will have to establish their claims in a convincing manner. What is it looking like for NLNG? How far down is it going to go?

we are challenging these claims. what we are saying is that they made money when the market was good. so, if there is a downturn in the market, that is business. you win some; you lose some. there has to be a balance. we are looking at legitimate cases. If we find legitimate cases, we will make recommendations to the board that there ought to be a price review or adjustment, but if the case is not legitimate, then we won’t make the recommen-dation. we are pragmatic and reasonable in the way we look at the market. we also make recommen-dation to the board where we see a case for price increase and if the buyer doesn’t accept that, part of the process is going to arbitration and letting a third party decide if the claim is reasonable or not .What are your thoughts on the Petroleum Industry Bill and what changes do you expect it to bring to the industry?

I think we need to wait and see what eventually is enacted into law. I think also that there are a lot of things that have been put into this bill and it may be quite challenging to satisfactorily resolve all of those in one piece of legislation. but we need to wait and see the end product. On the issue of diversification, there are reports that in the US, there seems to be a push for cleaner gas and less dependence on foreign energy. There is this gas revolution and talk of shale gas and land fill gas. What is going to be the impact of this on NLNG gas sale to the US?

we have already started to see the impact of


on the Petroleum industry Bill, we need to wait and see what

exactly is enacted into law


secretsshale gas in the us. In 2007, shale gas was not significant at all in the us because it was not economical to develop. but the spike in gas prices in 2007 and 2008 led to a lot of development of shale gas projects that otherwise would have been uneconomical to develop. and that has had a major impact because all of that development has come to the market now. so today, you have a lot of shale gas coming into the market in the us. and what that does is that it is flooding the us market with domestically produced gas. therefore, less and less imported gas is required. so what I think is happening is that with gas prices low in the us now, you will find the drilling rigs count has gone down by almost 40% to 50%. this means that people are not investing anymore because it is not economical at prices below $5 to invest in shale gas projects. therefore, supply will suffer again and prices will go up and then people will start investing again and supply will catch up again. this is the typical cycle in the energy business. You talked about Asia-Pacific and the US gas market oversupply. This is a glut in the market. Can we still describe LNG business as good busi-ness since demand is falling?

yes, it is still a very good business and, by the way, it is not just asia-pacific and the us markets that are oversupplied. all the major markets are oversupplied. clearly, there is a glut in the market. In fact, the international energy agency says the glut may be as much as 200 bcm of gas by 2015. that is a lot of gas floating around without firm destination. but the prices are recovering and not too bad at the moment. In asia, we are beginning to see prices at $6 to $7. In the us, it has gone up again to about $4.5 on the average. In europe, it depends on each contract. on the average, we are seeing clearly above $5 in the nbp which is the uk price marker. It is not too bad because at $5 we still make money. It may not be a major windfall but it is not bad at all. It is just that the margins are down but it is still very good business.With the various projects emerging around the world, what will become of the business when there is going to be a surplus of suppliers?

project sponsors are not stupid. they will look at the market; they will delay their projects, if it is not economical. some projects will be delayed if the markets remain oversupplied. these projects involve a huge amount of money and nobody will finance a train if it is going into a market that is oversupplied. so generally, I expect to see some delays in projects that are reaching fID. new projects will only be launched when it makes economic sense to do so. Plans for Train 7 are on. Where is the company now in terms of negotiating SPAs for that train?

the spas have been done. they were finalised since february 2006. they are all ready to go but as you know, there are other conditions for taking

fID. normally, it is about 16 essential conditions before you can take fID and you need to meet of all of them. the spas are just one. one other big one is the gas supply. we need to line up the gas supply and here we are talking about an 8.4 mtpa train. there is a lot of feed gas required for that. all of those will have to be lined up. we need about 12 ships for that and we need to line up those shipping tenders; we need to make sure we are getting the right epc price to make this go. we need to wait until other conditions are met before we see the project go forward. In situation like this when a project is proposed and you have a contribution to make, how do planners balance national interests and economic interests?

that is the reason why we have diverse shareholders. remember the nigerian national petroleum corporation (nnpc) representing government holds 49% shareholding in nlng.

typically, every stakeholder will ensure that its best interests are accommodated before agreeing to go along. fID has to be taken unanimously. the national interest will be protected by nnpc representing 49% interest. the International oil corporations (Ioc) will also be looking at their own interest and they have a duty to see that they

protect their investment objectives and align that to the interest of the host country. all interests will have to be accommodated one way or the other before a unanimous decision which is required for fID. and that is why fID takes time.But what if a government decides to do a project on its own because all of the interests could not be resolved?

for lng projects, it has never been done in that way. It is always a partnership. lng is something that is based on a very long value chain. all parts of the chain must work for the project to succeed. If there is any weak link, then the project will suffer. It is not something any government can afford to do alone. I have not seen any lng project that any government anywhere in the world has undertaken alone. It is all about collaboration. the government needs the Iocs, the Iocs need the government, and they need the market and the transportation. there are all sorts of chains that you need to work and you need to work them successfully. I don’t think it is the right way to go for governments to go it alone, at least as far as lng projects are concerned. How successful has the Domestic LPG supply been?

It has been very successful. since we started domestic supply, one good measure is that there hasn’t been any lpg scarcity in the market. we stepped in, December 2007, and before we came in, I remember a 12.5 kg cylinder was selling for about n8, 000 and it was also difficult to find. by stepping in, we have assured security of supply of lpg. however, there are still challenges regarding infrastructure. the only functioning lpg terminal in nigeria is the noj in apapa which also takes in other products. lpg is at the bottom of the pecking order, so it is still a challenge to take lpg into the market. happily, there are other facilities coming up. sahara energy has just acquired the ppmc termi-nal in calabar and they are upgrading the facilities and that terminal will become operational again soon. navgas facility in apapa is also coming up. this terminal is going to be dedicated to lpg and will make a lot of difference. What volume of LPG does the company supply to the domestic market?

It is 150,000 tonnes a year. however, the market is still growing and is not able to take all of that. I believe the market will grow in the next few years if the necessary infrastructure is developed. What is the extent of collaboration with LPG off-takers to see that cooking gas remains affordable?

we have very good relations with the lpg lift-ers. that is the only way to keep the scheme going. we offer them a lot of flexibility which as you know has a lot of value.Are there plans to expand the circle of off-takers?

the board has already authorised an increase from six to about 10. If there are more qualified buyers, they will be added.


The sPas (for Train 7) have been done They were finalised since

february 2006 They are all ready to go but as you know, there are other conditions for

taking fid

B y E l k a n a h C h a w a i

Since its in ception in 1977, the Maritime Academy of Nigeria has graduated Shipboard Officers and Ratings for all facets of the Nigerian maritime industry. The school had operated without a Proficiency in Survival Craft and

Rescue Boat (PSCRB) mandatory equipment required for the training of seamen in the operations of the ship’s Life Saving Appliances.

On 5 February, 2010, Nigeria LNG donated the PSCRB equipment worth N40 million to the academy in addition to fire fighting equipment earlier donated. So far, NLNG has spent about $100 million in bringing the institution to minimum international equipment and training stand-ards outlined in the Standards of Training, Certification & Watchkeeping for Seafarers (STCW) Convention.

The PSCRB comprises one set of 50-person-enclosed lifeboat, one set of six persons’ davit launched rescue boat and one set of 12 persons’ davit launched life raft. The PSCRB training involves the management of the ship’s Life Saving Appliances.

In its bid to replace all the foreign Ratings working on NLNG ships under the Nigerianisation Programme, NLNG

sends Nigerian Ratings abroad for PSCRB certification in the U.K.

“Our Company has a plan to ensure that it gets to a point where all personnel on our ships will be Nigerian and we are vigorously pursuing this objective. Hence the provision of support by NLNG to the Nigeria Maritime Academy, Oron,” Chima Ibeneche, Manag-ing Director of Nigeria LNG Limited, said at

the commissioning of the equipment in Oron.Represented by NLNG’s Shipping General Manager,

Captain Temi Okesanjo, Mr. Ibeneche said NLNG’s dream is to ensure that any personnel trained in Nigeria for the maritime industry should be able to hold their own in the midst of their peers anywhere across the globe.

“That is the reason for engaging the Warsash Maritime College, Southampton to review the 95 STCW courses. Warsash Maritme College also provides accredtaiton to MAN, Oron; through the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), United Kingdom,” Mr. Ibeneche added.

Captain Okesanjo, said the donations of the equipment was part of the commitment that NLNG made to MAN when the company decided to use the college for the development and training of Nigerian Officers and Ratings for services onboard BGT ships.

He said over the years, NLNG has sponsored “Train the Trainers” courses for MAN’s lecturers at Warsash Maritime College UK; provided fire fighting & safety equipment for carrying out approved STCW courses for Ratings; and facili-tating the agreement and issuance of STCW Ratings Training Certificate jointly by Warsash Maritime College and MAN.

Commending NLNG, the Minster of Transportation, Alhaji Ibrahim Isa Bio, represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Adefemi Olayisade, said “what NLNG and the academy have done is an excellent example of Public-Private Partnership which the Federal Government endorses. The PSCRB will in no small measure strengthen and enrich the training capability of MAN, Oron.

The Rector of MAN, Oron, Nseyen Ebong, also had many accolades for NLNG. He said NLNG has been supporting the academy since 2003 in enhancing the academy’s training capacity and capability to world-class standards.

s h o r t t a k e s

Manpowered

the PSCRB equip-ment

Sir Adefemi Olayisade Representative of the Minister of transport (right) with Capt temi Okesanjo of NLNG (General Manager Shipping Division and Mr Grant Akata of NLNG (Manager hR Fleet Management)


s h o r t t a k e s

Regimental Unit commander MAN Capt. MCM Osiah shakes hands

temi and Grant

temi, Grant, Olayisade shaking hands with Peter Umoh, representative for

Olayisade and Rector MAN, Mr. Nseyen Ebong observing the donated

equipment

Capt Osiah

Capt temi Okesanjo Olayisade being inter-viewed by the press

MAN Rector Ebong Olayisade

Oron constituency

with Mr Grant Akata of NLNG (Manager hR Fleet Management)

Closeup of the PSCRB equipment


t h e p r I Z e

DD goes, DD comes

B y D a n D a n i E l

“Wherever I go, wherever you are, you’re never far away,” crooned Onos Brisibe, a musician, quite as poignantly as the original singer of the Lagbaja song, Never

Far Away . The event was the “Send Off/Welcome” party for the outgoing/incoming Deputy Managing Directors (in NLNG-speak, DD) and the venue was the popular Shell Hall of the Muson Centre Onikan. The guests (staff and friends of NLNG) were prompt as they awaited the arrival of the two special guests. Some of the guests had come to say their goodbyes to erstwhile DD Engr. Faithful Abbi AbbiyeSuku; others were there to meet Nigeria LNG’s new second-in-com-mand Mr. Basheer Koko; and others, just out of plain curiosity, to find out what these kinds of events were all about.

Food and drinks aplenty, the guests quickly and quietly got comfortable exchanging pleasantries and taking-in the atmos-phere. Even the press were at hand to cover the event, moving in the crowd conducting interviews and taking photographs.

AbbiyeSuku and Koko and their families seemed visibly pleased to see the guests at the event. The night was filled with nostalgia as the guests watched video highlights of Engr AbbiyeSuku’s stay at the company and listened to remarks from his colleagues and direct reports. A visibly moved audience listened, raptly, as the two princes (their royal lineages pointed out by NLNG Corporate Audit and Assurance Manager Dave Eguare in quite a fitting toast) thanked the guests for coming and said a few words about their desires for the future, AbbiyeSuku’s outside NLNG and Koko’s within the company.

The night ended on a high note, with Brisibe and band serving some more delight-ful notes appealing to anyone who was willing to spend some more time on the dance floor. “Yeah I wanna dance with somebody…” she belted-out eerily. There were no takers though, as the hall soon went as quiet as it was before the start.

New NLNG DD, Basheer Koko, MD NLNG Chima Ibeneche, and former

NLNG DD Faithful Abbi AbbiyeSuku

AbbiyeSuku receives a parting gift from Ibeneche

Koko, Ambassador Patrick Dele-Cole and Mrs Ugo Ibeneche


s h o r t t a k e s

s h o r t t a k e s

Koko, Ibeneche, Dele-Cole, AbbiyeSuku

Regina Agboola, Man-ager Corporate Audit, Dave Eguare, Koko

the Ibeneches and AbbiyeSuku

General Manager Ex-ternal Relations Sienne Allwell-Brown and

Manager Commercial Marketing Ajiya Umar

Koko ponders the future

Koko shakes hands with Grant Akata, NLNG (Manager hR Fleet

Koko and General Manager Commercial Division, Patrick Olinma

Management)


Anne Pickard is universally known. Probably because she is Shell’s Regional Execu-

tive Vice President for Sub Sahara Africa, a job that has given her oversight of all of Shell’s Exploration & Production, Gas and LNG activities in the region.

Or because she was Director, Global Businesses and Strategy and a member of the Shell Gas & Power Executive Committee, with responsibility for Global LNG, Power, and Gas & Power Strategy.

Or because she was previously President, Southern Cone Gas & Power based in Rio de Janeiro, overseeing Exploration, Production, Gas and Power in the region.

Or indeed because she had been the face and representative of oil majors around the globe with significant business experience in South America, the countries of the former Soviet Union, the Middle East and Africa, a role that gave her a front seat in oil and gas business history.

Elkanah Chawai, Dan Daniel and Yemi Adeyemi sat down to talk with this disarming lady who has been described by CNN as “the bravest woman in oil” and have come up with what can be described as the outline of her memoir. In the inter-view, you would also find an answer to the quiz: why are IOCs uneasy about Nigeria’s Petroleum Industry Bill. One word to describe it: gripping.

You have been around Shell locations across the globe. What has the experience been like for you?

I joined shell in 2000. I came from exxon mobil after the merger. I was on the mobil side and then they merged with exxon. I looked at the opportunity and decided that I was a not a good fit within the new exxon mobil company and that there were better opportunities elsewhere. I joined shell in 2000 and I haven’t regretted it one bit. I don’t have a long shell history, although 10 years is starting to be long, but I think that since I have worked around the world, my preference is to work in an interesting, challenging place where I can make a difference. how often do you make a difference when you are sitting in the headquarters? I have always tried to spend as much time as I can out in the operating units. I chose to come to africa. I have always said this is the best job in shell. and having been here for over four years now, I can actually confirm that this is definitely the best job in shell. I loved my initial first job in shell, which was in brazil. I was responsible for the southern cone, both gas and power in the e&p, and that was fabulous. you can’t really say anything bad about living in brazil. we had lots of challenges, working with what was relatively a young national oil company (noc)—petrobras—in many ways reminiscent of some of the challenges we have had with nigerian national petroleum corporation (nnpc); with a government which didn’t really understand the oil business and whose fiscal policies change regularly . so, it was kind of a good foundation for africa. after that, I went to gas and power, and got to see things from that perspective. shell has been the biggest lng player in the world and making sure that we stay the biggest player in the world was, that was really important to me.

I am glad to see that oklng has started to come off the ground and of course we looked at brass lng limited and, most excitedly, nlng. That was exciting from the lng perspective. I think from the power perspective, it was good because, while we were selling lots of our power plants, we were committing to new ones at the same time. one of them, of course, is afam. I actually committed to it from my old job and when I got here, I got to build it. That was kind of neat to see something all the way from the very early stages to first power. It is rare that somebody gets to do that in a big company because you move around. That was exciting to me and of course coming to africa, to a place with a resource potential like nigeria—and we


‘I have thethe ann pickard you didn’t know

in shell’best job



look after the rest of africa -- was a wonderful opportunity for me. and then getting to go on the nlng board; at the time, gas and power was not under my organisation; it was a separate organisation which has changed now but then having the honour of being on the nlng board was incredibly exciting for me to see something that I have seen from a different vantage point in my last job. In my last job, I was responsible for shipping, sales and lng in general. I was on one side of the fence and then I came over to the other side of the fence. It was an exciting opportunity. This has been a great place for me.You made that quip about the headquarters. Does that mean you don’t see yourself going back to The Hague?

I am not really a good headquarters person. I am better operating. I like to be as close to the business as I can. I like to be as close to where the money is made as possible. I like to contribute to the bottom line and once you are in headquarters, you are overhead. It doesn’t mean there aren’t important roles there, but for me, I like being a lot closer to where the oil and gas is being produced. Is that why you chose Africa?

all three jobs I was offered were actually operating, but again, I would like to work where I can make the biggest impact and having been involved in africa before, I felt that this is the place that I can make a significant impact. we speak about, from my perspective, the shell share price. how many jobs are there in shell that actually influence the shell share price? peter vosser does and of course the executive committee does, but then, when you get down below that, this job does. The share price reflects what we do out here and I feel I am accountable for some aspects of shell’s performance.When you came on, were there surprises or shocks that you encountered in the job?

I think there were quite a few surprises. I think the nigeria I had experience with in the early and mid-90s is not the nigeria that I came back to in 2005 and it’s not the nigeria that we have today. I think we have seen a huge change in nigeria over the years. In the mid-90s, it was the military regime, in some ways a more orderly business environment, but not a good environment for the people of nigeria. winston churchill said something to the effect that democracy is the worst form of government, save all others. Democracy is chaotic and messy. It is more difficult in many ways. but it is better for the people. so I went through seeing a country in a military regime to a country that is in a young democracy. and now the 2005 picture--obviously what happened from then until now is a whole different country again. The good news is, I think, the middle class is springing-up again. when I am asked about the future of nigeria and what gives me hope, I say it’s the middle class I see developing.

I look back to brazil where I worked twice. brazil under military regime had no middle class. since it became a democracy, that middle class became very important and it grew, it actually started to reinforce the democracy and the country is continuing to get better. I see that in nigeria going from almost no middle class in the 90s to a beginning middle class in 2005 to a much bigger class today, and I think I have hope for the future when I see this middle class growing. to see people’s kids who can afford to stay out of the country returning to the country; people choose to work in nigeria. young people choose to work in nigeria, rather than in the united states or

the united kingdom. That gives me great hope for the future of nigeria. so that is a big nice surprise.

There are negative ones. The situation in the Delta has to be a very big surprise. The roots of what we have today did not begin three to five years ago. It began a very long time ago. I talk about resource control and I come from a country where the land owner doesn’t necessarily have resource control, but somehow the financial benefits flow back into that part of the world. and when you look at the situation in nigeria, it has not happened. The financial benefits of the oil have not flowed back into where they need to. so you have extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure, whether it is health care or good schools. and that is the root of what we have today. what we have today didn’t just happen overnight. It has been long coming. fixing that has to happen before nigeria and the Delta can truly turn around. That was a big change and a big surprise to me.

what I also saw is the situation in the ‘80s and in the ‘90s where we could actually move freely within the communities to a situation where we are becoming more and more isolated within the communities and that is also significant. This didn’t happen overnight; it is a slow evolution and it says lot of things about how the Delta is developing.

I think these are some of the negative surprises. all of a sudden, we are in an environment where we are being attacked and kidnapped and not necessarily because it was us, but because it was resource control issues; it may not have been about being able to control the volumes, but being able to control some of the money that came out of the volumes, and we got caught up in the middle between the poverty and extreme neglect in the Delta and the government and the need for change and the government’s views on how to treat the Delta.Do you have faith in the on-going amnesty programme by the federal government?

I pray every day that it continues. I think, like everybody else. I worry that with the president’s absence, can it keep going? he is a very brave man to set about the amnesty. I can remember

those early days, everybody said it would fail, but he put an awful lot of personal effort to get the amnesty up and going. we just have to hope and pray that the leaders, whether it’s him or other people from the governors to the vice president, continue with those efforts. so all I can do is hope and pray that it continues. we obviously try to provide some support in all of our business. we are not job creators. we do create some jobs, obviously, but we generate revenues. when you look at shell petroleum Development company (spDc) in particular and how much revenue is generated for the government versus how much the international oil companies (Iocs) take, it is huge revenue to the government and I think it is those revenues that will go out to create jobs; it is not the oil industry. so, we’ve just got to hope and pray that the money that is generated by the oil industry gets put back into development, back into creating jobs, and let the jobs continue to help with the poverty in the region.

at the same time, there had been a breakdown of law and order and we have seen a change in the last few months in that too. The criminal activities have to be stopped. There are two issues: make sure there is a socio-economic development plan in place so there is no basis for militancy, but on the other hand, when there are criminal activities, stealing oil and condensates, you have to have some way to stop that.Apart from job creation, there is this general feeling that one of the things


When i am asked about the

future of nigeria and what gives me hope, i say it’s the middle

class i see developing


around the problem in the Delta is the issue of corruption and that in itself is one thing the industry needs to look at. What do you think about this?

well, I am a big supporter of nigeria extractive Industries transparency Initiative (neItI). I think that it is a very good effort and I think we as the industry should be very supportive. shell has been very active on its board and I think that has helped the corruption issue. I am not an expert on corruption. I know that nigeria continues to rank high in terms of indexes around the world. but I think there are efforts that are being made to try and prevent or lessen the amount of corruption. There is this general notion that the oil companies don’t do enough for the communities and there is this school of thought that says that a lot is given to the government for them to do these things. What is your take on this?

obviously, I come from that point of view. ninety-five percent of the net profits of spDc go to the government. for every dollar of net profit, 95 cents goes to the government and five cents goes to the Iocs. The government has to do a lot in terms of development. That said and done, there are things that should be done better. so the niger Delta Development commission (nDDc), whom we pay 3% tax, should be used as a social development agency in the Delta. It has done a certain amount of things, but there is room for improvement there. we still should have our own social commitments in the Delta. I look at the history of shell and I have seen a number of programmes that have changed over a number of years. This is not our expertise and we are not good at it. four to five years ago, we landed on this global memorandum of understanding (gmou). we stole it from chevron. I always say that if somebody has a good idea, we should steal it. so we have stuck with the global memorandum of understanding and we have tried to improve on each new one we have signed. I think that has started to bring the communities back into being partners with us. It is very different because it is not us telling them how to spend their money or it is not a few elders telling us how they want the money. It actually tries to build a partnership between non-governmental organisations (ngos), the local governments and spDc to figure out the way to best spend the money and then not have shell build but to use the technical skill base of the community to build. we help with technology transfer as well. we are excited about the gmou and I think that helps.

another thing, which is the longer term part, is that spDc offers scholarships, just like nlng does. we have reoriented those scholarships in the last four years to be more directed to the delta—not a 100% go to the delta, but a high percentage goes to the delta. Then we need to get more employment, get more people from the delta coming into the company. I think there are things we can do better. scholarships, in the past, kind of went across the country, but now they are more focused on ethnicity and gender. we are going after more women. we do need to do more stuff in the communities. If we can reduce our security cost, then there will be obviously more money that can be used in the communities. which takes us back to the amnesty—of course we want the amnesty to succeed. I’d much rather spend that money on communities or producing more oil than spend it on security.Shell is probably the biggest IOC operating in Nigeria. There is this

feeling that it does not rank high in terms of its relationship with the host communities. Are there steps being taken to get back on track and assume the number one position in that regard?

I think in terms of spDc—shell is part of spDc and I thought I mentioned total and eni—they deserve some of the credits for what we are doing as well as nnpc. but again, going back to the gmou concept; we are big and so putting this gmou concept out—and we have to do over 50 of them to cover the whole area—my steer to our team was that we do them one at a time. each one we take, we spend a lot of time getting set up, making sure we have the right people involved because in the past we have been accused of not dealing with the right people. It’s either you have got the wrong community or the wrong elders and we couldn’t quite get it right. so this way, we spend a lot of time to get it set up right, making sure the local governments are involved and that ngo’s are involved and then moving them forward. I think the concept is really good. again, instead of shell building a school house which is empty, if the community decides they want a school house, somebody else is going to build it in partnership with the local governments. we don’t control the spending now. I think it was nembe that chose to spend the money on international scholarship. They took the money in their gmou and they said they want their youths to be

competitive and they chose to spend the money on international scholarships. so we see lots of different ways that money is being spent. we are not dictating it.

The problem is the legacy issues. you have to get rid of your legacy issues. people have to get confident. I think our previous ceo said “your reputation can depart in a ferrari and it comes back on foot”. It could be gone like that. once your reputation is gone; getting it back up is a whole lot of story. That is what we are trying to do. It is not an overnight issue. If I can go out and provide 19, 000 jobs for that many militants, it would be great. The industry can’t do it. but what we do is putting a seed out there, getting people educated, so that in the future, there is less reason

for militancy and people can get jobs. we are working with the british, american and the Dutch governments on the amnesty to try to make sure they are providing support to the amnesty. we do a lot of work through our host governments as well.As the Executive Vice President, what keeps you up at night?

safety to me is a big issue. I think it is very possible to operate safely in africa. If you ask me what my legacy is, it is going to be safety. when I got here, there were too many people who died in the business and, to me, that was a sign that the company was not well. we have today one of the best safety records in shell. when you look at things like the trcfs and ltIf and fatalities, we are on top of best performance, right now, in the group. but I do worry non-stop about safety.

There are two aspects to safety. There is personal safety and there is process safety. with personal safety a single person tends to die, maybe the person did not follow working in the heights rules; they did not clip, so they tumble and fall. That is a personal safety issue. not wearing your seat belt is a personal safety issue. process safety tends to do with the facilities. Do we know the status of the facilities? Do we know they have been properly cared for? Do we know that we are following the rules? In the main, are things being done the way they should be and are the facilities safe to work in? and as your facilities age, that even becomes more important. process


i am a big support-er of nigeria

extractive indus-tries Transparency

initiative it is a very good effort and the industry

should be very supportive


safety accidents are multiple fatalities. more than one person dies in a process safety accident. personal safety and process safety are the two things that keep me awake at night. even from the security point of view, if people follow our rules, there is a high likelihood they won’t die from a security event. If they follow their journey management, the likelihood of somebody dying from a security event is much lower than if they didn’t. I think security events can be managed. It is really safety that keeps me awake.Recently, the company, through SNEPCo, sold off some of its interests in some oil blocks and there are reports of the company divesting its interest in the country. Is this true and is your move to Australia part of the plan?

This is not correct. If I look at the divestments we have done around the world and we look at our portfolio, is the asset worth more to somebody else than it is worth to us? That is the first thing you weigh when you look at something. how mature is it? because, to be honest, when things start to get more mature, sometimes, there are people who can operate them better than us. we look at the future potential, so abo, which was our first investment in deep water, was on the more mature side and we didn’t see the future in the same way that the operator did and we knew that there were people that were interested in deep water assets. what we insisted on in the end was that we wanted to sell it to a nigerian company, even though there were a lot of non-nigerian companies involved in the bidding process. we felt we wanted to sell to a nigerian company. so that is one of the asset transactions. onshore nigeria, an spDc asset is not easily as sellable and tradable as a plc asset. but when a joint venture looks at its portfolio and says what is the most important and what is less important to me, then you start asking, if I want to high-grade my portfolio, how do I do it? what has happened here is a number of things that have happened in our most recent transactions.

In co-operation with the government, we have been looking for ways to help nigerian companies become stronger, because in many ways, Iocs have had a very strong position in nigeria and as we know the future, we need more nigerian content and that includes nigerian companies. spDc is the biggest equity holder in nigeria, and it would make sense to transfer assets in some manner to nigerian companies. so, these three blocks were identified to be in that category. total, eni and nnpc agreed and identified parties who are marginal field operators in that area and they knew them and we thought they had the competencies to grow a little bit; to help them to get started. and, that is the way we have approached it. spDc, in co-operation with the government, identifies nigerian companies that are ready to step up and operate and take up a little bit more than what they had in the past.

The funding situation in spDc has been in crises for a very long time and so we can’t possibly do what we need to do under the current funding and if somebody else can find a way outside the joint venture to do it, it makes sense.

That is again another reason. we should allow the country to benefit from its resources. These people will be able to deliver pretty nicely.

but no, we are not leaving. concerning my leaving to australia, I have been here over four years, and with transition 2009, the big shell reshuffle in the world which you may not be very familiar with, at my level, you either went now or you wait for another four years. I have had sufficient time to have been here and it’s time to move on to another portfolio.

Nigeria’s importance in the grand scheme of things isn’t exactly decreas-ing?

It is not decreasing. I think it has been a very rough four years. The last time peter vosser saw president yar’adua, the president said shell and nigeria either sink together or swim together, so let’s swim together and we agree to that. It is a very important country to shell, but given the problems that we have seen in the last four years, we have recognised that it is not possible to grow as fast as we would like to do. between the security issues, the funding issues, the petroleum Industry bill and other issues like that, we have not been able to develop the opportunities as quickly as we would like to. It is a wonderful portfolio. when the opportunities develop to grow it again, we are going to do so. one of the biggest opportunities is australia, which I think has about six lng projects. shell has been here for a long time; more than 50 years producing and when nigeria is ready to move on again, we will be the first.Now that you have mentioned funding, there is talk of Incorporated Joint Ventures (IJVs) in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) as a panacea for the funding problem. The NLNG ownership structure is one of those ven-tures. Has this model worked out for Nigeria? Is it a model to emulate?

I think the nlng model works great. unfortunately, that is not what is in the pIb. we have to be careful when we talk about the pIb. to the best of our knowledge, none of the Ijv concepts in the pIb are those of nlng. If they were, we would be jumping up and down for joy because the nlng model is a good model. to the best of our knowledge, what is in the bill is that nnpc holds over 50% and probably has control of operations. so that is not the nlng model. from the funding point of view, the history of nlng was such that the government had to relinquish total control under 50%. The way the banks look at the venture is that if it is more than 50% government then it is government controlled and they look to the government for financing, approval, support and sovereign guarantees. no government will ever

like to give sovereign guarantees and so if in an entity, it is over 50%, it is looking for sovereign guarantee for it to be financed. unless the government is willing to go under 50% in the Ijvs, like in nlng, it is hard to see how that will solve the funding issue.

I don’t know the concept of nnpc taking over operation. That seems a little fuzzy to me. what will be the role of Iocs? It seems very fuzzy to me. everybody has a different view of what it means. That is not clear to me. but right now, in all of the versions of pIb, the Ijv is not that of nlng.How does this model compare with other models that Shell operates around the world?

well, there are certain versions of Incorporated joint ventures and it does come down to who controls the joint ventures and how independent is the joint venture as you see in oman, nlng and malaysia. so it is a whole bunch of different models and all of which have worked out but in varying degrees a lot of it comes down to government participation. for a lot of reasons, nigeria has chosen not to fully fund its joint ventures. There are a lot of demands on its income and if it has to fund the Ijvs, it is hard to predict that it will.

I think one of the frameworks in nigeria prohibits multi-year funding. when you think about commitments in trains 4, 5 and 6, you don’t do it in one year. traditionally, in nigeria, when you start something, you finish


i have been here for

four years at my level you either

went now or you wait for

another four years


it. In that last four years, that has not been true. The spDc, for example, began a project called forcados yokri. The gas is supposed to go to nlng. It was 80% built and the funding was stopped. It is not completed and it’s just sitting out there. gbaran-ubie, another one, is going to be big supply coming in for train 6 and that will come in 2010. government quit funding in 2007/2008. It was about 50% built at that time. we walked away from forcados yokri. In gbaran-ubie, the three Iocs said it is really important and we continued to fund and gave a loan to the government to be able to afford their share of it. These are big issues out there.Talking about gas; what do you think about the Gas Master Plan and the government’s priority shift from exportation to domestic gas supply? How has it affected the IOCs?

yes, that is what happened to oklng and nlng train 7. The point is nigeria has enough gas to do both, but again it has to have a fiscal security funding regime to allow both to develop. There is enough gas, so you don’t really need this shift and that is one thing we have always tried to educate government on. first, let’s understand that the gas master plan and the pIb are not complementary. we have got big issues, so which one is it—the master plan or pIb? which one?

as written in the pIb, domestic gas is not interesting and not profitable. The master plan has the right objectives. The roadmap to get there is a bit shaky. I mean a lot has to happen for the future. so I don’t think we are in disagreement with the gas master plan. The idea of having central processing facilities is a good one. There is, however, a roadmap that has to happen to get to a price that causes you to invest. otherwise, you have to subsidise some way or another. right now, the reason that makes sensible domestic gas supply is the tax regime around which we could write it off. If that changes in the future, which in the pIb it does, gas may become less interesting, unless you are going to get a higher price. The thing about oil is that it is easy—just pull it out of the ground and put it in a pipe or freighter and it is gone.

gas business is a chain and requires long-term supply agreements, backed by secure payments, even before committing to any investments. whether the gas is going to turn the lights on here or whether it is going to some client in mexico, it is a chain and that whole chain has to work. getting that chain to work is a challenge. That is what makes gas so much fun. The gas master plan tries to do that chain but it doesn’t happen overnight. and it is not a nigerian phenomenon. I mean the united states had it totally wrong. The united states regulated the price of gas in the early ‘90s and guess what happened, there was low price and nobody made any investments in gas. brazil, the united states and the united kingdom have gone through it; it is hard to get it right. It also makes it more interesting.Some reports have described you as the “bravest woman in oil business”. What do you have to say to that?

well, I don’t think I deserve that. mine is a very simple view; I can’t have people working some place I can’t go. The fact that my skin colour is white shouldn’t be relevant. I can’t have nigerians working some place if I can’t go there. It is not fair. I think I have got that because I go any place in the Delta. If I have got people working there, I should be able to be there too. I think it was developed from that concept. our most important asset is not the oil; it is our people. we talk about production a lot, but we have to keep our people safe. safety is far more important than production. making sure that

our people are safe to do their jobs, to produce the oil is where our focus is. I think that is where it came from—my willingness to go any place in the Delta, to talk to anyone, to be with anybody, to try to ensure peace and try and do what we can.What is your assessment of the current skill pool available in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria?

nigeria is blessed with people—talented people. you know I think about the number of applications that spDc gets when we are trying to find qualified people. you may have 20 job openings and you get a 1000 people who are qualified for it. nigeria is absolutely blessed with the talent base. It is really a shame we can’t put more people to use. The quality is great and that is not the problem. we deployed some of the best new technology in the world here without a problem in bonga—brand new technology when it came in. The twister in okalahoma which supplies afam with domestic power, absolutely state-of-the-art, brand new technology being tested here in nigeria. you don’t do that unless you have got the skilled workforce, unless you have got people that have the vision to do it. we take work that is done in europe and improve on it. In fact, we have a ceo award here in africa. we had a team that took some work that was done in europe and challenged back at the centre. we said we could do it better, if we redesigned

it and we turned out to be absolutely right. talented workforce is not a problem. What would be your greatest achievement in the last four years in Nigeria?

safety.Was that what you set out to do when you came?

since I got here and when I saw the safety statistics, it had to be number one. obviously, I would like to produce more oil and gas because we don’t produce them as much since I got here, but we are improving pretty rapidly right now with the amnesty in place. my second achievement after safety is people. I like to think my legacy is: we have taken an organisation; we have made sure we have got what I call a talent

pipeline in place and we have identified top talents that can go all over the world. we have got development plans and succession plans in place; the scholarship programmes have changed quite a bit; I think the whole management of this national resource is my second legacy.Where do you think Shell operations in Nigeria will be in the next 10 years?

I think it all comes down to the pIb. In other words, if the government gets it right with the petroleum Industry bill, we’ve got an awful lot of things to do to continue to grow. we can see train 7 and 8 coming in nlng. we will love to get oklng moving forward within the timeframe. we have got domestic gas projects; lots of deep water wells still to go. There are just huge opportunities. I hope the government provides a win-win environment that allows the Iocs, including shell, to continue to growShell has not really invested much in the downstream sector. Do you think that will change in the future?

I don’t think so. we look more and more to going to very competitive places. nigeria still struggles with what its philosophy is going to be in the downstream. What would you advise young professionals in the industry?

come and make a difference.


What would be your greatest

achievement in the last

four years in nigeria?

safety

In 2009, Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, won the Nigeria Prize for Science for discovering a gene responsible for Sleeping Sickness. his paper provided a baseline for the development of DNA vaccines against trypanosomiasis. On 3 February , 2010, at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs in Lagos,

Nigeria LNG Limited and the Nigerian Academy of Science presented Professor Nok to the public, giving him the opportunity to present his work to the academic com-munity, the media and students, and, well, give him a rock-star status, according to Chima Ibeneche, managing director, NLNG. the visual report follows.

nok out - publicly

Chima Ibeneche welcomes Professor Nok

Prof Mary Kolawole and Prof Grace Olaniyan-taylor

Professor Njidda Gadzama (right) and members of NLNG staff

Deputy VC UNN (representing the president of NAS) Prof Mosto Onuoha

Professors Dan Izevbaye and Idris Amali

Jerry Agada and Prof Zainab Alkali

Professors Idris Amali and Awele MaduemeziaProf Mark Nwagwu and Prof

Onuoha


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Prof Nok presents his work

From left to right: Ibeneche, Oladapo, Koko, Banjo and Agada congratulate Professor Nok

From left to right: Basheer Koko, Ibeneche, Nok and his wife Amina

Professor Nok with staff of Nigeria LNG Ltd

Professor Nok with students of Vivian Fowler College

Chima Ibeneche says a few words

From left to right: Olaniyan-taylor, Onuoha, Ibeneche, Nok, Oladapo, Koko, Banjo, Agada

Prof Andrew and Amina Nok


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New grounds in treating sleeping sicknessB y J o n at h a n a n D r E w n o k

Paper delivered at the Public Presentation of the 2009 Science Prize Winner

african trypanosomiasis, known as sleeping sickness in human beings and nagana in cattle, is a disease that is resurgent in africa. It is documented that over 50 million people living in 36 countries are at risk of acquiring sleeping sickness (molyneux,

1997). In addition about usD 140 million is lost annually on account of nagana and other forms of sleeping sickness (kristjanson et al., 1999). at the moment, there is no vaccine against the disease; this is due to the capacity of the parasites to vary their surface antigens. furthermore, existing drugs are becoming ineffective on account of the emergence of drug resistant trypanosomes. all these contribute to heavy losses and socio-political crisis in the continent that has culminated into mass migration and poverty.V A c c I N E

one particular feature of the trypanosome parasite is the dense glycoprotein coat covering the entire surface of the parasite. with 1000 different genes encoding antigenically distinct versions of the coat, the parasites have the capacity to engage in an immunoprotective process of antigenic variation. This has particularly constituted the major obstacle toward the development of a vaccine against the disease. (figure1)

(FIGurE 1) SChEMATIC rEPrESENTATIoN oF ThE dIFFErENT ANTIGENIC ForMS oF ThE TryPANoSoME PArASITE AT ThE VArIouS BouTS oF PArASITAEMIA.V A c c I N E I N d E V E l o p M E N T

Dna vaccine is a relatively recent development in vaccinology. It is now possible to undertake step-by-step approach to Dna vaccine design. strategies include the incorporation of immunostimulatory sequences on the backbone of the plasmid, co-expression of stimulatory molecules, utilisation of localisation secretory signals, and utilisation of the appropriate delivery system.

Dna vaccines are generally less costly to produce than peptide or protein vaccines, and are chemically stable under a variety of conditions. recently, we reported the protection of mice experimentally challenged with leishmania donovani after Dna vaccination against parasite enzyme gama-glutamylcysteine synthetase. This was especially appealing to research on

trypanosome vaccinology. S I A l I d A S E / T r A N S - d I A l I d A S E A N A E M I A A N d T r y p A N o S o M I A S I S

anaemia known as the loss of red blood cells is a crucial sign preceding death in the course of trypanosomiasis. studies have implicated the enzyme sialidase (sD) as pivotal in the development of anaemia during trypanosomiasis (esievo, 1982; engstler et al., 1992; nok and balogun, 2001). This is accomplished when the enzyme cleaves the terminally linked sialic acid of red blood cells (rbc) thereby generating an asialo-rbc which is then cleared by circulating macrophages. trypanotolerant ndama cattle known to be resistant to trypanosomiasis compared to the zebu breed are known to possess high o-acetylated sialic acids resistant to hydrolysis by sialidase. (figure 2)

NDAMA ZEBU(FIGurE 2 TryPANoToLErANT NdAMA ANd TryPANoSuSCEPTIBLE ZEBu CATTLE)

The enzyme sialidase also exists as a trans-sialidase (Ts) in the insect vector (Tsetse fly) stage of the parasite where it transfers sialyl residues from blood meal to a receptor on the parasite, creating a highly charged glycocalyx not recognised by the insect’s hydrolytic enzymes (figure 3)

(FIGurE 3 dEVELoPMENTAL rEGuLATIoN oF TS/Sd ENZyME IN INSECT ANd BLood STrEAM ForMS oF ThE TryPANoSoME)

By this action, the parasite protects itself against enzymes or the complement system of the insect’s immune system T H E r E S E A r c H

since sD activity is key to the development of anaemia, our work over two decades focused on studies on its forms, i.e. in the animal and insect forms.

our hypothesis is that silencing the sD gene in bloodstream forms of the parasite or the use of Dna vaccination against ts/sD can arrest anaemia and mediate the killing of the parasite by the host. also knocking off the ts gene in the insect form will render the parasite susceptible to the insect’s enzymes.

In order to pursue chemotherapeutic and vaccine control, intensive


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research into several aspects of the basic biology of the parasites, the role of tsetse flies in transmitting disease and the responses to infection of different breeds and species of livestock is mandatory.

our work thus focused on developing a Dna vaccine, encoding the sialidase/transsialidase gene; transform and over express the cloned genes; purify the recombinant protein containing a his-tag using affinity nickel agarose column; immunize balb/c mice with pvax-ts/sD and boost with the recombinant ts and challenge with t. brucei; and generate ts/sD knockout or knockdown t. brucei mutants and infect tsetse flies (glossina morsitans) and balb/c mice with the mutants for studies on their survival in the flies and the development of anemia in mice.r E S u l T S

our results revealed the following• The release of sialic acid (sa) into the serum by t congolense infected

balbc mice correlated to anaemia and parasitemia• solved polynomials revealed an association between free serum sa and

rbc-sa• positive roots of quadratics were used to predict complete cleavage of

rbc-sa on day 7.01 and maximum accumulation of free serum sa on day 6.6. (ax2+bx+c)

• a steady rise in the level of serum sialidase (sD) activity and a low pcv with an increase in parasitemia were observed

• mice infused with galactose, methyl-·-gal, lactose, mannose, or l-arabinose and challenged by intraperitoneal inoculation with t congolense did not develop anaemia

• tsetse flies pre-fed with 2,3 dideoxy neu5ac2,3n or p-oh-oxamic acid prior to infected blood meal compromised transmission of the diseaseThe foregoing results directly implicate the enzyme sialidase as key in

the development of anaemia. Detailed kinetic study of sD from trypanosoma evansi showed as

follows:

Trypanosoma evansi sialidase: -GPI membrane anchored protein.

-Optimally active at pH 5.5 and 37oC. neu5ac2,3lac fetuin mu-neu5acKM 4.8 x 10-6M 2.9 x 10-2M 0.17 mM Vmax 3.75 x 10-6 U 4.2 x 10-3 U 0.84 U

-The Trypanosoma evansi SD hydrolyses GM2 -Inactive towards colomic acid, and Neu5Ac2, 6. lac. -Desialylates the RBC: mouse, rat, camel, goat, and dog. -Cerebral cells isolated from BALB/C

GENEa trans-sialidase gene 2 5kb was amplified from the genomic

dna of the bloodstream form of Trypanosoma evansi and was found comparable to trans-sialidase genes from some trypanosomes

sequence analysis indicated 99% maximum identity to some african trypanosomes trans-sialidase genes

six substitutions and a deletion at position 596 when compared with 5 Ts gene primary sequences suggest the occurrence of mutations that can cause redundancy of the protein

The asP box and the friP motif were identified in the TeTs primary structure a stretch of amino acids isrVigns, LycHe and VPVMLiTHP found to occur in all african trypanosomes

Ts genes so far studied were also identified in the TeTs gene seven catalytic site residues common to sa and Ts gene families including the arginine triad (r86, r330, and r409) were identified on the catalytic region of TeTs gene These results show that TeTs is a Ts gene and a key target for dna Vaccine development CLONING OF tS GENES

four genes Ts1, Ts2, Ts3, Ts4, Ts5, Ts6 amplified from T evensi dna were cloned into ToPo vectors and expressed in B21 cells

Vaccination experiments with cloned genes and challenging the recipients with pathogenic trypanosomes revealed strong protection by two genes

• ToPo-Ts1• ToPo-Ts5

ELECTroPhorEGrAMS oF PCr ProduCTS ANd rESTrICTIoN dIGESTIoN oF CLoNEd TS GENES IMPAC t

This work has broken new grounds in the search for the treatment of Trypanosomiasis, (sleeping sickness) The results have tremendous potentials to be exploited in the design of target specific vaccines

our report is the first that followed the systematic delineation of functional activity of the enzyme to its molecular level This work shall impact on the therapy of trypanosomiasis as well as other parasitic diseases that have been neglected

Bibliography• BurataiLetal(2004)Characterizationofsialidasefrombloodstream

formsofTrypanosomavivax.CellBiochemistryandFunction22:5-11• EngstlerM.,etal(1992)PurificationandCharacterizationofanovel

sialidasefoundinprocycliccultureformsofTrypanosomabrucei.Mol.Biochem.Parasitol54:21-30

• EsievoKAN,etal(1982)VariationinerythrocytesurfaceandfreeserumsialicacidconcentrationduringexperimentalTrypanosomavivaxinfectionincattle.Res.Vet.Sci.32:1–5

• EsievoK.A.N.,etal(1992)ErythrocytesurfacesialicacidinNdamaandzebucattle.

• J.Comp.Pathol.96:95-96.• KristjansonPM,etal(1999)MeasuringthecostsofAfrican

trypanosomiasis,thepotentialbenefitsofcontrolandreturnsandresearch.Ages.Sys59:79-98

• MolyneuxDH(1997)CurrentpublicHealthstatusoftrypanosomiasisandLeishmaniasisIn:TrypanosomiasisandLeishmaniasis;biologyandcontrol,GHide,JCMottram,GHCoombs,DHHolmes,(Eds),CABInternational,OxonUK,pp39-50

• NokAJandBalogunEO(2003)AbloodstreamTrypanosomacongolensecouldbeinvolvedinanaemiaduringexperimentaltrypanosomiasis.J.Biochem.133:725-730

• Nok,AJ,etal(2003)TrypanosomaevansiSialidase:Surfacelocalization,PropertiesandHydrolysisofGhostRedBloodCellsandBraincells–ImplicationsinTrypanosomiasis.Z.Naturforschung58:594-601

• SchenkmanSetal(1991)Anovelcellsurfacetranssiali¬d¬aseofTrypanosomacruzigeneratesastagespecificepitoperequiredforinvasionofmammaliancells.Cell65:1117-1125

• ShugabaA,etal(1994)Biochemicaldifferences(O-acetylandglycolylgroups)inerythrocytesurfacesialicacidsofTrypanotolerantNdamaandTrypanosusceptibleZebucattle.J.CompPathol110:91-95


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I n t e r v I e w


‘no more excuses,

now’write

Two new developments in the administration of the Nigeria Prize for Literature: the competition is now open to Nigerians overseas and the judges’ identities are no longer secret. Here, a long-standing member of the Literature Committee of the Nigeria Prize for Literature, Professor Ayo Banjo, speaks on these changes. Elkanah Chawai spoke with him.

I n t e r v I e w

Reasons for the changes

you know at the beginning, nigeria lng limited stated quite clearly what it wanted the prizes for. In literature, the emphasis was to develop the whole book value chain, not just publishing, but editing and presumably sales and distribution. It is not as if members of the literature committee did not feel that this was a restricted pre-occupation. The ideal thing

would have been to say the nigeria prize was for all nigerians wherever they are. but we had to stick to what nigeria lng limited wanted at the beginning. we bought into the idea using this to develop the whole book value chain. but after six years, we thought we could branch out and do what is ideal and expedient. everything seems to have come together. nigeria lng limited is agreeable that we should throw it open, the committee is agreeable that it should be thrown open and it looks from the reactions from authors that they too are agreeable. It seems the time is ripe to do this and it will only enhance the status of the prize.On the book value chain

we haven’t measured it to be quite frank. but there is no doubt that we have created awareness. from what has been going on, no writer would say that he or she doesn’t know what is being done by the nigeria lng limited for literature. There are publishers within the literature community; we don’t monitor them or know what they do, what they can take advantage of, what is happening. publishers who produce the winning title are at great advantage because they have the title promoted through these activities and the publisher makes a lot of money as well as the writer.On opening up the prize to Nigerians abroad and fears of unfair competion

true, there are better facilities in europe and america for instance than we have here. but for how long shall we condone this lacks of facilities and lower standard of the prize just to satisfy these deficiencies. This is a challenge. The other people outside the country are also nigerians. It is possible that the best way to do what we set out to do is by making the local writers compete with the outside writers and challenge the publishers. when they see what is being published outside, they will do something to their companies too to ensure that what is being published is flawless. as it is now, I don’t think they are being motivated to improve what they are doing. Though when the thing is thrown wide open and everybody sees the titles that are winning, they will want to produce their books to the same standard. Whose responsibility to develop facilities

I think it is a joint responsibility of many agencies starting with the government. because if the education system is as good as it should be,

we won’t be in difficulty. judges won’t be saying that people have written books and there are elementary errors of grammar. anybody who has got secondary school certificate should be able, if our educational system was properly organised, to write flawless english. Then the government is responsible for facilities. If there is no electricity, there is nothing nlng (or the academy of letters) can do about that. If there is no good transportation, there is nothing nlng can do about that. It is a joint responsibility for all of us and nlng is doing its bit by encouraging the talented ones and motivating everybody to win the prize. you know we suffer from extreme heat in this country. In the moderate countries, the climate is congenial for intellectual work. what we must do in this country is to ensure that everybody, not just writers, have access to air conditioning so that they can perform properly. In europe I can’t imagine a house without heater. From Nigeria Prize to Africa Prize

That is entirely up to nigeria lng limited. but personally, I don’t think it should. There are people in our community who feel the prize should be nlng prize. The provenance of the prize should be clear. anybody in the world who is a nigerian can win it but it should indicate where the title comes from. It comes from nigeria. some people want to pinpoint where exactly it comes from but nlng is not willing to claim that advantage.

Effect of judges’ open identity on the prize

I don’t think it would have any effect on the prize other than the competitors now know who the judges are. all the insinuations made about the judges last year would not be there because they have seen the names of the people and we have been very careful to choose people who have integrity, knowledge and expertise. This should remove all doubts from the minds of people who feel that a small cabal somewhere just comes out with results. That is the only advantage that I see.

How judges workThey look for something which extends the boundaries of literature

and a very high degree of creativity; something new.$50, 000 prize money: sufficient or not

you have heard that it is better than the booker prize. let’s face it; part of the explanation of the reaction that we got last year for not producing a winner comes from the size of the prize money.

message to nigeria’s literatiThey should play by the rules now that they are being enabled to see

that there is no conspiracy anywhere because they know who the judges are. let them face the challenge that this is posing for them instead of looking for conspiracy theories to explain anything. I see a good future for the prize.


Let (writers) face the challenge instead of looking for conspiracy

theories to explain anything i see a good

future for the prize

Some members of Nigeria’s literary community converged one evening in February 2010, courtesy of Nigeria LNG Ltd, to discuss, among other things, the Nigeria Prize for Literature and matters arising from the non-award of the prize last year to any winner. Who said what?

• Prof ayo Banjo, member literature Prize Committee: we listened, we changed thingsThere has been a deluge of criticisms about why confine the

prize to writers living in Nigeria or people who have lived in Nigeria for four years prior to the competition. We have looked at this very carefully and we have taken appropriate decisions which we will all see in due time. The literature committee is not impervious to criti-cisms, because if we are going to make it a very credible competition, then we have got to listen to people who are likely going to compete. I think it is in that spirit that Nigeria LNG Limited has brought us here today. If there any other matters, you should put it into writing and feel free to bring them up in your own perception of the writer’s work, the writer’s position in the society and how best to make these

positions as credible and as attractive as possible. The committee is working hard to please Nigeria LNG Limited which is providing this colossal amount of money but also to please you, the writers. We don’t want to do anything to dampen your spirit.• Jerry agada, president, association of nigerian

authors: let’s partner for better resultsIf you cast your mind back to the fact that (Nigeria’s) first Nobel

prize was in literature, noboby can say that Nigerian literature is noth-ing to write home about. Shortly after that, I remember as far back as 1997, when we had an ANA election in Abuja, there was the feeling that nothing is happening in the circle of Nigerian literature; and that Nigerian literature has gone into exile. As far as I was concerned, that was not true. The mere fact that some of our notable writers at that time all went abroad to reside and do their writing there; as far as I was concerned, it was the question of going to look for greener pastures. It wasn’t a case of something happening and killing the Nigerian literature. But positive things continue (happening) to Nigerian literature. Shortly after that, we have had many people who came onboard to win prizes in the likes of the Caine Prizes and writers like Chimamanda Adiche and Helon Habila. In terms of performance, I will like to say that we are not crying as far as Nigerian literature is concerned. However, there is always room for improvement. That is why I take very particular interest in the activities of the Nigeria LNG Limited and the things they do as far as literature is concerned. I have had the opportunity to attend the Grand Award Night ceremony before and each time after the night, there are criticisms. I tell people that this is an organisation that has come out of many to do this

positively to our literature. Why should we not be happy with them? If you have a benchmark for ANA prizes, you can’t say NLNG must also take because they have their own ways and goals. It is not for us to tell them that they have derailed. It is not an appendage of ANA. What we should do is partnership which will make Nigerian literature better. • Professor idris amale: PrESSure

The press has decided to over-publicise it as if the award was going to be made on the amount of reviews and comments that were passed in the press. • Dr Emma Shehu, president, abuja writers Forum: where’s everybody?

If we are really concerned about moving Nigerian literature forward, there has got a bigger

gathering than this; it’s got to be all the stakeholders together because the books are written and they are not properly edited and distributed. Writers don’t even know the basis of the craft. The reviewers are not doing a good job of doing the literary reviews. It is a big challenge and I hope NLNG will convince others who have money to invest and develop our literature. • Chike ofili, chairman, lagos chapter of association of nigerian authors: tenure, academia and prize money

Tenure should be moderated to a point where

people are not allowed to stay too long in one position so that they are often moderated. I want to suggest to the NLNG that the panel should be often reviewed and they should not exceed a particular time so that they don’t feel too powerful. So if we are giving them 10 years or five years, they should also be reconstituted after those years. I would also like to suggest that what ever panels or committees that are set up should not be all academic people. We have brilliant journalists who are paid their dues, devoting their writings to literature. We want to reduce the dominance of the academia in judging the prizes. That is very important. Also important is that if $50, 000 is too much, I suggest it is reduced to $30, 000 and use the remaining $20, 000 to build infrastructure that will give birth to the kind of literature you are canvassing. When we don’t take care of infrastructure and you are expecting too much is counter-productive.• Prof. Dan izevbaye, member, the nigeria Prize for

literature committee: what is true, untrue?The tenure of judges has been set to one year. In other words,

although we thought judges could do two years in cycle, it was decided that those who specialise in certain genres should be appointed—at least two of them. So, in drama, three drama special-ists were appointed. For the children’s literature, it is obvious that these people should not be there. It is a misunderstanding to think they are appointed for ever. The second point that is likely misunderstood is that the committee thinks the prize money is too high. That is not the truth. It is not because it is high that nobody won last year. You have to see the prize in an international context. NLNG is international and stakeholders will compare prizes not within the nation but interna-tionally and they are likely to say this prize is like the Booker prize, that would the text have won if it was entered for the Booker prize.• Pamela Udoka: thank goodness, no more masks

One thing the committee has done that is very thoughtful and nice is removing the mask from the judges. I believe that you bring big masquerades to judge your work, anybody who is dancing on the stage or on the pages of newspapers after losing an award would think twice before doing that because we know who the judges are and they are men of integrity. I commend NLNG for removing the mask.• Prof Mary kolawole: Judge, the nigeria Prize for

literature 2010 edition: Judging is serious business, stressful evenI will like writers to know that we are partners and that we are

not trivialising these things. I would like writers to know that when there is a stalemate, you go through a lot of agony and you would really wish that there will be a winner that would emerge. Let me contrast this experience as a Commonwealth judge and being a judge of ANA some years ago. Three quarter of the books received for the ANA prize awards were things you wouldn’t even look at twice. They were booklets but you still have to look at them. My challenge as a judge is more stressful than as a professor of literature. I want you to understand and put yourself in the position of the judge that it is a very serious business and it involves commitments. We appreci-ate you. It takes a lot of commitment and courage for those who remained in Nigeria and didn’t leave the country.• Mobolaji adenubi, author of Splendid: Sowing, reap-

ing and one fearWomen writers of Uganda impressed me at one book fair in

Harare in 2002. They were able to publish books of their members annually. They did this by reviewing the book and deciding whose book would be published in that year. Members of the group would read and edit the book and when they finally agree the book is ready for publication, it is published. We need something like that in Nigeria. I don’t think we can rely on ANA to do it. Anybody that is interested in Nigerian literature should think seriously of providing this service. ANA should determine how many books should be

Conversations on literature Prize et al

Literature committee members

the Nigeria Prize for Literature Committee

Professors Dan Izevbaye, Ayo Banjo, Mary Kolawole and Chief Joop Berkhout, members of


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published in any given year. When the books are selected, they should be properly edited, published and marketed…NLNG is hoping to reap when it hasn’t done anything. It hasn’t sown or done anything. It should prepare the writers for these prizes. They are opening the prize for people abroad; that is fine but I was hoping that there will be a moratorium for Nigerian writers to develop, gain more confidence and find editors to edit their books before they are now sent in for the prizes along with books from abroad where people get their books properly edited and packaged. They will win and that is my fear.

A writer goes through a lot of problems in this nation…there is a whole lot of things NLNG can do rather than give a prize annually. There are a lot of things that can be done to simulate creativity in an environment.• abimbola adelakun: writing in dark-

ness, sorry, with candlesConcerning the Booker Prize standard of writ-

ing that was mentioned, we are looking at outside paraphernalia...and not looking at the internal structure. Nigeria is a very difficult environment to write and I write with a candle every night. It is a very difficult environment. After I read some Booker prize winning book, I said that this would be a very difficult thing to do in Nigeria. We should look at the internal structure. • anote ajeluorou, arts writer, the

Guardian: Bring in the hoi-polloi

The judges should be moderated. It is good that there are a lot of professors there but I am of the opinion that it should be more than that. In the Booker Prize, there is a comedian and a journalist amongst the judges. Literature is not for the pro-fessors and academia. The teacher in the classroom is interested in literature and should be part of what happens there. We should look into that.• toyin akinoso, geologist/art

enthusiast/writer: C’mon, don’t kill the donkeyToo many people are blaming the NLNG for

infrastructure building of Nigerian literature. I think the whole idea of instituting the award is significant and it has stimulated discussion around the Nigerian literature. I don’t think the NLNG is responsible or needs to be responsible. I think all of us in our little corners could do our own bid in this infrastructure building. A whole lot of things are happening and they can be supported if they are put together and incorporate more sponsors. NLNG doesn’t have to solve all of the problems of Nigerian literature. You can’t impose on them the duty of create an editing situation or a marketing imperatives of Nigerian publishing. That is not their job.• Jumoke Verissimo, writer: i beg your

pardonNLNG is not doing us a favour! It’s a symbiotic

relationship. It’s a corporate social responsibility (CSR) for NLNG.

Author Odili Ujubuonu has a few words to say

Finally Bimbola Adelakun gets her say

Up-and-coming poet Jumoke Verissimo shares her passion

NLNG Manager, External Relations, Ifeanyi Mbanefo

Professor Zainab Alkali sur-rounded by enthusiastic fans

Emman Shehu speaks as well

Professor Idris Amali of University of Maiduguri

Cross section of guests, literary enthusiasts

Jerry Agada speaks Anchor, Jahman Anikulapo in action

f e a t u r e

g a l l e r y

A cross-section of guests at the event

Some guests at the event

Guests at the event

Mr Chima & Mrs Ugo Ibeneche

at the event

Amanyanabo of Grand Bonny Kingdom, King Edward Asimini Dappa Pepple, Perekule XI, arrives Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Emeka Ojukwu and his wife Bianca

Former head of Service, Ms Ama Pepple and Joop Berkhout Mr and Mrs Odein Ajumogobia


Gan 09PiCtorially

grand award night

g a l l e r y

Some guests at the event

MD/CEO NLNG Chima Ibeneche with 2009 Science Prize winner Professor Andrew Jonathan Nok

Ikemba gives his speech

President of the Nigeria Academy of Science, Professor Oye Ibidapo-Obe gives a speechDeputy Managing Director NLNG, Mr Basheer Koko giving the vote of thanks

Professor Ayo Banjo member of the Litera-ture prize committee

announces the results for the 2009 Prize for Literature

Ijodee dancers perform

Ikemba and Joop Berkhout (foremost publisher and member

of the Literature prize committee)

Ken Nnamani, former President of the Senate, and Mrs Dora Akunyuli, Minister of Information

Chairman Nigeria LNG, Dr Osobonye Longjohn

Special Adviser to the President on Petroleum Matters, Dr. Em-manuel Egbogah

and Communications


nlng - the magazine 2010 edition 1

Documents

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n e o f n

t h e i n h o u s e

fortune magazine

n evol

lng market

nlng fold

anne pickard