12 May 2015, Abuja – The 215 mw Kaduna Power Plant will be reconfigured to be fuelled by Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) instead of Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) as earlier designed, the Permanent Secretary Ministry of Power, Amb. Godknows Igali, has said.
The N23 billion plant was scheduled for commissioning last December by the Federal Government but due to the non-availability of LPFO and other technical hitches, it was delayed further.
In an exclusive interview with Daily Trust, Igali said the plant is going on very well, adding that even the timeline of December last year was for test running to fire two of the turbines.
“But it is better to get it right, and because we do not manufacture a single item in Nigeria, if we are in the process of test running and we discovered something, we have to call the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) to replace that and that is why we have not yet fired those two turbines,” he said.
A representative of Sewa Ltd, the consultancy firm handling the project, Mr. Iian Apple, who received Vice President Namadi Sambo at the Kudenda Industrial area, said the EPC contract as a whole cost N23 billion and would meet the December timeline when it would be commissioned on a start up with diesel fuel.
The 215mw Plant is a dual fired station with eight turbines capable of being powered by Low Pour Fuel Oil, LPFO, and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG).
But Igali said the biggest challenge faced was that earlier it was to use Low Pour Fuel Oil (LPFO) but it was not environmentally friendly “so we are now changing the fuel source to gas – Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). That brought some problem of reconfiguration, retrofitting and realignment.”
According to him, one of the IOCs is guaranteeing the supply of gas. They will truck it because it is easier to truck gas than heavy fuel.
Igali noted that before the end of the first half of this year (before June end), some NIPP plants would have been able to make substantial commissioning. He said those being test-run include Gbarain in Bayelsa State, Calabar, Ihovbor in Benin and Ogorode (Sapele II) in Delta, adding that gas is all available.
*Simon E. Sunday – Daily Independent
