The Federal Government at the weekend moved to resolve the gas supply challenges that have led to poor electricity supply nationwide.
The Minister of Power Engr. Abubakar D. Aliyu in a statement yesterday said the new initiative in place will improve gas supply to Power plants to make up for the generation shortfall from Hydro plants.
The unresolved challenges meant that as at 4pm yesterday, grid power supply was 2,813 Megawatts with 16 plants on grid.
According to him, “The progress so far made includes, amongst many other initiatives, the following:
“The gas pipeline affected by acts of vandalism has been restored and the Okpai power plant has resumed power generation and currently contributing an average of 300MW.
“The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Pl has been directed to enter into fast-track negotiation with NAOC on an interim energy sales agreementwith a view bringing the new Okpai Il power plant on the grid thereby contributing additional 400MW of generation capacity.
“The “pigging” of the gas pipeline supplying gas to the Odukpani power plant is scheduled for completion on March 21 st 2022 thus ramping up generation by about 400MW”.
Engr. Aliyu explained that “in order to optimise the capacity utilisation of the power plants owned by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company Ltd (NDPHC), the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has approved a special gas pricing for emergency contracting of gas from the Nigerian Gas Marketing Company Ltd.
“We expect an on-grid improvement of about 800MW generation capacity from the NDPHC plants.
“In the medium-term, we have agreed with NGPIC (a subsidiary of NNPC) on the framework for the overhaul of the Okoloma gas processing plant thereby restoring the full capacity of the 650MW Afam VI combined cycle power plant”.
The Minister stressed that “while the recent spate of system collapse is regrettable, it was a direct consequence of a snap on a 330kV transmission line. The mitigationmeasures for avoiding such incidence of blackouts are being implemented through several interventions including the Presidential Power Initiative”.
