By LAZARUS IBEABUCHI & ELIZABETH AMIHOR

First City Monument Bank Plc, FCMB, said it has entered an agreement with Tower Power Utilities Limited, TPUL to invest N4 billion in financing the company’s 17.75 Mega Watts capacity combined cycle gas fired power generation plant in Otta Industrial Estate, Ogun State.

According to a statement by the bank, the N4 billion financing was granted through the Bank of Industry’s N300 billion Power and Aviation Intervention Fund (BOI-PAIF), which was launched in August 2009 by the Central Bank of Nigeria to facilitate investment in two of Nigeria’s key sectors which have the potential to drive sustained economic growth.

The statement explained that FCMB refinanced TPUL’s existing non BOI-PAIF debt and has subsequently financed increased capacity from 8.75MW to 15.75MW owing to increased demand from its customers in the Otta Industrial Estate.

The bank further stated that the company plans to increase capacity to 17.75 MW with the addition of 2MW Waste Heat Recovery Apparatus (WHR) for improved efficiency, the statement said.

The statement noted that power is distributed through a small 11KV distribution system installed and owned by TPUL and generated by Cummins-made gas engines.

“The feedstock is gas, supplied by Shell through a pipeline which terminates in the Ota Industrial Estate. Apart from scheduled maintenance, the gas supply has been uninterrupted since inception,” the bank said.

Mr. Robert Grant, FCMB’s Vice President and Group Head, Project and Structured Finance commented that FCMB was proud to support TPUL’s business model as it provided clean, reliable and affordable electricity to manufacturing companies and that removing these potential users from the national grid has reduced the burden on the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s (TCN) thus, beneficially supporting domestic users with more stable power.