*As power supply drops to 2,796MW on lack of gas supply
Oscarline Onwuemenyi
03 August 2016, Sweetcrude, Abuja – President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday assured that Nigeria is working hard to resolve the power problem facing the country.
Buhari, who spoke while receiving the Togolese President, Faure Gnassingbe, at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, noted that the problem is also affecting other neighbouring countries who are depending on Nigeria for their power supply.
He said, “They say seeing is believing, you can see the efforts private investors are making. We are also building pipelines but it is not as formidable as what Dangote is doing, we are improving on it. We also have the LNG that is helping us to liquefy the gas and then turn it into gas with modern technology and modern technology is making it flexible.
“And if you will recall, I made mention to President of Benin, we have power supply problem and Benin has power problem because they depend on us and we are working very hard to stabilise the situation. The resources are available, the technology is available we are trying to stabilise the situation.
“If we improve power which means our productivity can be competitive and God willing we are going to achieve our objectives,” the president added.
On his own part, the Togolese President said that he was impressed by the Dangote investment which brought him to the country.
He said, “Because we have been talking of socio-economic integration and promoting trade among African countries. If you want to promote trade you have investors that are very competitive and will contribute to reducing import from non-African countries.
“I was told the gas pipeline that will be built will be buried under the sea to make it. It means if you want to promote blue economy, our ocean needs to be very safe. We need security,” he said.
According to him, he was also in Abuja to invite President Buhari for the maritime summit billed for Togo on the 15th of October, 2016.
In the meantime, power supply to the 11 Electricity Distribution Companies (Discos) on July 29 dropped to 2,796megawatts (MW) on the lack of gas supply to thermal power plants due to vandalism of gas pipelines.
The Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI) made this disclosure on its website yesterday, saying that lack of gas supply resulted in no generating or shut-in of 4,595MW.
However, it said there was no water management constraint as the cause of the power thermal plants. With the huge drop in output from the thermal plants, production from the hydro plants accounted for a chunk of the daily power supply.
The NESI stated that the nation lost about N2.26 billion on that day due to the inability to put 4,595Mw into operation.
NESI’s daily summary on the day under review, said, “On July 29, 2016, average power sent out was 2,796Mw, which reflected an increase of 93MW when compared to the previous day.
“The reported gas constraint was 4595MW. The reported line constraint was 133MW. The water management constraint was zero megawatts. The power sector lost an estimated equivalent of N2,269,000,000 on July 29, 2016, due to constraints.”