SAN FRANCISCO, June 13, (THEWILL) – The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), in conjunction with international oil companies (IOCs), has declared its intention to contribute 2000 megawatts to the national grid by mid-2017.
According to a communiqué issued at the end of the sixth monthly meeting between Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing with operators of the Nigerian power sector, on Monday in Kano, the feat will be achieved with the completion and commissioning of four infrastructure projects by the NPDC.
“The projects to be completed by NPDC will improve gas supply to power plants over the next few months through September 30, 2016, and it is estimated that the increase in gas supply to power plants will increase generation capacity by approximately 2000mw by the middle of 2017,” Hakeem Bello, special adviser to the Minister on communications, said in a statement.
“A total of 855 mmsfcd is expected to be added to the domestic gas supply in the short term of which about 70 percent is sent to power plants for use in generation, the statement further read in part.
“The meeting also resolved to persuade oil and gas producers to explore better ways of re-injection to boost oil production by using water instead of gas, in order to increase the amount of gas available for domestic consumption.
Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), on its part, reported the completion of 20 projects in Gwagwalada, Kaduna, Afam, Apo, Lekki and Omotosho since the last meeting.
It also expressed commitment to restore power to Maiduguri, Borno State’s Capital in the next month after a long period of outage, as well as the need to shut down the 300mw Okpai power plant so that a tower, which was earlier vandalised can be repaired to restore a 55km transmission line.
Story by David Oputah
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