$3.1bn Egina FPSO: LADOL denies Samsung made $300m FDI in Nigeria

The last may not have been heard in the face off between Lagos Deep Offshore Logistics Base (LADOL) and the parent company of SHI MCI FZE, Samsung Heavy Industries Nigeria (SHIN) Limited, as LADOL yesterday accused Samsung of misrepresenting the facts.

LADOL and Samsung have entered into an agreement to introduce local content in the fabrication and integration of the $3.1bn Egina Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessel (FPSO).

The management of LADOL said Samsung claimed it made a Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of $300m in Nigeria during the construction, fabrication and integration yard in LADOL Free Zone, but that it was not true.

In a statement by its counsel, Fidelis Oditah (SAN), LADOL contrary to Samsung’s claims, SHI was paid as a contractor to build the fabrication and integration facility at LADOL as part of the Egina FPSO package contract.

Samsung, it insisted, was a contractor, not an investor, in respect of the facility, adding that it invested nothing in the construction of the yard.

Oditah added that, “In summary, Samsung committed at least three frauds and misrepresentations in connection with the June, 2014, Settlement Agreement in order to induce LADOL to surrender its 80 per cent equity ownership of SHI MCI FZE and the fabrication and integration facility: The first is the fraud by which Samsung took LADOL’s equity in SHI MCI FZE and gave itself 70 per cent ownership of a fabrication and integration facility which was approved by the Federal Government and funded by Total as the poster child of Nigeria’s local content policy in respect of the Egina FPSO