APOLOGY TO AVEDIA

BUSINESS Report on Sunday, January 24, published an opinion piece entitled “Tale of strategic energy project 8 years in making” by Keith Bryer. Business Report would like to apologise for any inaccuracies in the piece. Avedia has made the following assertions:

The name of the company in question – Avedia Energy – was spelt incorrectly. The author referred to it as Avierda Energy.

The author made the statement that “no one in the LPG industry had heard of it” – Avedia was established in 2007 and is backed by Union Petroleum Services, one of the biggest LPG companies in Nigeria. Avedia Energy and the company’s managing manager are well-known in the international LPG market. His family has been in the LPG business for 50 years. Avedia employs 30 people, not one. “Sunrise has never requested Avedia’s designs.” – Avedia has requested Sunrise’s designs and has been rebuffed. A court order has since been issued compelling Sunrise to provide Avedia with its designs.

Referring to Avedia’s managing director as “the Nigerian”; “It was the stuff of nightmares” and “He nevertheless orders steel pressure vessels from China (not locally) and dumps them on the shore to be exposed to sea air;” refers – the construed implication – that Nigerians cannot be trusted or that Chinese products are inferior, are unfounded.

For the above reasons we hereby retract all the statements made in the article and apologise for any embarrassment caused. This apology and retraction shall be in full and settlement of the claim.