The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas, Tony Attah, has said that at least 55 per cent of the scope of work on the newly signed Train 7 project of the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited, NLNG will be domesticated in Nigeria to create an additional 50,000 jobs in the country.

Attah said the move was to demonstrate to the world that Nigerian companies’ capacity and personnel in the oil and gas sector had improved to handle high end technical projects following the efforts of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board.

Attah said this in Port Harcourt on Friday during a reception ceremony organised by the Junior Chambers International to honour Simbi Wabote, the Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board on his reappointment ad the Executive Secretary of the board.

The MD said the Train 7 project would create 12,000 direct jobs and 40,000 indirect jobs.

He said, “I dare say that without the support of the Executive Secretary, personally committing, we may not have Train 7 today. Train 7 means 12,000 jobs directly and based on the board’s calculation 40,000 additional jobs indirectly.

“Let me dimension it for you, the relative peace that the entire Niger Delta enjoys today called the Amnesty Programme was 35,000 people who were positively put to some good and employment.

“So think about one project that is bringing the opportunity of 50,000 people directly or indirectly being gainfully employed, then you understand what this man has done for Nigeria and did for Niger Delta.

“On top of that we are saying 55 per cent of that scope will be domiciled and domesticated and Nigerians will be directly involved in more than half of the scope of this particular project and we are talking of over $10bn in terms of the overall Train 7 investment.”

On his part, Wabote said that the Federal Government was finalising plans to site a 500 barrel per day capacity modular refinery in Imo state to boost local content in the South-East.