By Clara Nwachukwu & Sebastine Obasi, Houston, Texas

Respite for improved power supply in the country is not immediately forthcoming as Nigerians would have to wait a while longer time as the gas infrastructure needed to provide gas for power generation is not yet ready.

This is either because the power plants that will absorb the gas are not fully ready as they have not been connected to the gas sources or the existing pipelines that will supply gas to the plants have been vandalised.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the ongoing Offshore Technology Conference, OTC, in Houston, Texas, the Group Managing Director, GMD, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Dr. Joseph Dawha, said that although Nigeria can currently boast of 2 billion cubic feet of feet of gas daily, all of that cannot be in use due to inadequate infrastructure.

According to the GMD, who was represented by the Group Executive Director, Gas & Power, NNPC, Dr. David Ige, “Cumulatively in the country, we are producing about 2 billion cubic feet of gas per day. Some of the gas we have available is probably stranded because some of the power plants are not ready. Over the next couple of months, we will see an increase in off-takes. For example, we have got gas at Gbaranubie power plant, which hopefully, should be commissioned shortly.

“We have gas at Omoku, which is awaiting the power plant. We have gas at Egbema. When you bring all these gas volumes together, we have close to 2 billion cubic feet per day. But not all of it is in active generation today, either because the power plant is not ready, or the gas evacuation is not ready.”

The GMD also said that on the Western side of Nigeria, where the power plants are ready, there is a shortage of 400 million cubic feet of gas, which is expected to be reduced significantly before the end of the year, as some of our projects come on stream.

Explaining the level of work done on the Escravos-Lagos Gas Pipeline, Dawha said that it  is almost completed. “We expect that within the next three months, the project will be done. We have completed and commissioned Lagos to Oben. We have completed Emure, all the way to Itoki. The bit that is left now is from the Benin end all the way to Emure. That is progressing very well. The expectation is that before the end of August this year, the pipeline would have been completed and would have doubled the capacity to 2 billion cubic feet per day, which should be the biggest pipeline in Africa,” he said.

He also blamed the recent drop in power supply to challenges currently beingexperienced in the sector. “We are having quite a lot of issues in the power sector. For the past three months, on the Escravos – Lagos pipeline between Escravos and Ogidi and Warri axis has been down due to vandalism.  It has taken us this long to repair that pipeline because the elections meant that the Joint Task Force, JTF, could not provide adequate security for our people to go in there and access the pipelines.

“It was only after the elections that people could access the place and work is going on there now. With the loss of that pipeline at the moment, we are losing close to 120 to 150 million cubic feet of gas daily in the last eight weeks. In addition, the Trans Forcados Pipeline was attacked about three weeks ago.