MARCH 22, 2012 BY MARTIN AYANKOLA
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Despite the announcement that the Kainji Power Station has resumed operations, electricity generation in the country has dropped by 900 megawatts in the past one week.
The Minister of Power, Prof Bart Nnaji, confirmed to our correspondent in a telephone interview on Wednesday that electricity generation had, indeed, dropped by 900MW due to gas supply challenges.
“Yes, power generation has dropped by about 900MW because of gas supply challenges. We are having serious gas supply challenges,” the minister said.
Nnaji had given a hint about the gas supply problem while announcing the shutdown of the Kainji Power Station on Friday. The station later resumed generation on Monday.
The minister had said, “It is regrettable that it (shutdown) occurred when there is a considerable reduction in national power supply as a result of shortage in gas supply to the thermal power stations.”
Nnaji had also disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan was personally leading a new effort to draw up a far reaching and composite plan to end all the impediments to the quick realisation of electricity development in Nigeria, including gas shortage hitches.
Our correspondent gathered that both the government-owned and privately-owned power stations had been generating about 3,200MW of electricity since Monday against over 4,000MW they were earlier generating.
Ministry of Power officials, who asked not to be named, blamed the situation on shortage of gas and failure of some equipment at the plants.
Our correspondent gathered that the peak electricity generation on Monday was 3,278MW, while it was 3,258MW on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the peak generation was said to have dropped to about 3,200MW.
“Most thermal stations are working below capacity due to low gas supply and faulty generation units,” a source in the industry, who asked not to be named because of the sensitive nature of the subject, told our correspondent.
Our correspondent also gathered from top officials in the industry that one of the hydro stations might have been shut down due to water supply issues.
It was also learnt that there was a problem at a Chevron gas facility, which was affecting gas supply to some of the thermal plants.
Because of the situation, huge electricity demand centres like Lagos, have been experiencing incessant power cuts.
The Nigerian power sector had in January achieved a peak generation of 4,420MW and had also generated 4,189MW in December 2011.
Inadequate gas supply to the stations has been a recurring problem in the power sector and has continued to cause instability in electricity supply.
Although the government has made efforts to construct more plants, inadequate gas supply has made it impossible to produce about 1,500MW extra that would have shored up the country’s power generation capacity.
The government is, however, working hard to ensure that oil multinationals commit more gas to the domestic market rather than the export market. Most of the oil companies have already dedicated their associated gas to export projects.
Nigeria needs about $10bn annual investments for 10 years to meet its electricity supply needs, thus the privatisation agenda for the sector, which should be concluded in the third quarter, is aimed at achieving this aim.
SOURCE: The Punch, 22 March 2012. http://www.punchng.com/
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