04 August 2014, Abuja – The planned maintenance by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) of all gas plants between this month and September will create temporary disruptions in power supply during the period, the federal government has announced.
The government said, however, that from October stability in power supply will be restored and improved upon to a minimum of 5,000 megawatts (MW) in December.
Speaking at the weekend during an inter-ministerial press briefing in Abuja, Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs Diezani Alison-Madueke, said typical challenges of reservoir decline, pipeline vandalism and community disruption of project schedules have impacted greatly on gas supply to power stations.
Present at the briefing were: Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, Chairman of the NIgerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr. Sam Amadi, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Mr. Godwin Emefiele, and Group Managing Director of NNPC, Dr. Joseph Dawha.
Diezani said with the additional interventions all the relevant agencies have developed, some of the challenges around gas will be addressed in the short term.
The cited the interventions to include expansion of the Utorogu field, Oben gas plant and drilling of new wells, among others expected to improve power supply in the next 5 months.
“It is expected that barring unforeseen developments, these interventions will add at least 370mmcf/d of gas and generation capacity of, at least, 5,000MW within 4-5 months,” the minister said.
– Daily Trsut