20 January 2014, Abuja – The Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Dr Sam Amadi, has called for an early end to the debate over the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) currently before the National Assembly, saying its early passage is critical to the power sector.
Amadi made the call in London, at the weekend during his presentation at the Nigeria Dialogue Gala Roundtable, in Chatham House, at a session that was chaired by Peter Callaghan, Commonwealth Business Council.
The NERC Chairman who was lead speaker at the event organised by the Nigeria Dialogue, an organisation of young Nigerians in the Diaspora, stressed that that early passage of the PIB was critical to achieving power generation targets.
Amadi also told the gathering that power supply is expected to hit 7,000mw by the end of this year as increased capacities are expected from the NIPPs coming on stream, while generation benchmark is set at 20,000mw by 2017.
He however, noted that early passage of the PIB was critical to achieving these targets, disclosing that the 7,000mw target set for 2013 could not be realised because of inadequate supply of gas to power, which the PIB can help reverse.
“PIB is critical to move forward on gas to power, the law should be passed as soon as possible, although the debate over it is big, but we want the matter to be resolved in a way that makes gas to power commercially viable and bankable. For end of 2013 we had expected to hit 7000mw and that would have been possible if there were enough gas to fire the plants and the NIPPS came on board.
“By end of 2014 we will definitely cross 7,000mw because of the NIPPs; if you put all the capacity together you will get over 4,000, in addition to the existing 4000Mw.
The benchmark is that by 2017 we expect that Nigeria electricity market will have over 20,000MW trading then.
“The PIB is critical to us because the critical constraint of the sector now is gas to power and except you have a very intelligible, practical and commercial framework over gas in Nigeria you might not have sustainable solution to the crisis,” Amadi said.
He also informed that the power sector local content regulation will become local content law by February 2014, emphasising that the law is intended to avoid the mistakes made in the oil and gas sector where it is still dominated by expatriates 50 years after.
– Leadership
