By Oscarline Onwuemenyi
ABUJA — Minister of State for Power, Nuhu Wya, has stated that the country would require more gas than it currently gets at its thermal plants if it is to improve power generation, even as he disclosed that increase in rain fall had led to a rise in the power generation to about 3700MW over the past few weeks.
Wya, who stated this yesterday at a Power and Gas Project Stakeholders’ workshop in Abuja, said in accordance with the Federal Government’s programme, the country would need 1.2 billion scf of gas on a monthly basis to generate enough electricity in the country.

He said: “We are currently getting about 800 million which is tallying with our production capacity at the moment and we are working very closely with NNPC and international oil companies and the World Bank. With the commercial framework put in place, the Partial Risk Guarantee to ensure them that their money will be paid as at when due.

“We are also rehabilitating our plants and coming up with the new plants of the NIPP. These plants are being put together so that when this gas is coming in at the correct time, the plants are being put on stream,” he added.

The minister explained that the Partial Risk Guarantee is a component of the Nigeria Electricity and Gas Improvement Project, NEGIP, a World Bank gas intervention project for Nigeria.

“The partial risk guarantee is part of efforts to ensure free flow of gas from where it is produced to the power plants,” he said, adding that the agreement reached with local oil and gas company, Pan Ocean, on the supply of gas for running the power plants has taken off.”
Power generation now 3700MW
On Nigeria’s current electricity generation, the minister told newsmen: “We are generating a little under 4,00MW, between 3,500MW and 3,700 MW. What we are doing now is to stabilise whatever we have.

“We are ensuring that gas is available to the plants that are working and we are making sure that the power that is generated is being distributed in a sustainable manner so that we have less of system collapses and less of disruption in the power supply. The little we are getting, we are distributing it in a sustainable manner and we are recording steady growth in generation.”

…tasks stakeholders on security
According to him, this exercise cannot succeed without the stakeholders concerned coming to work and supporting the initiative.

His words: “All the security agencies in the country have major role to play. The communities where the pipelines pass through also have a role to play in ensuring that they are well protected.”

Also speaking at the workshop, Senior Energy Specialist of the World Bank, Mr. Erik Fernstrom, said the inability to access gas for the operation of the thermal plants was a major challenge for power generation in the country.

He said: “The power problem in the country is difficult to solve because it is a link of different chains of interlinked centre of activities.”

“What this project wants to address is upstream issues, meaning, how do we get the fuel to run the power plants and how do you make sure that the companies running the power plants get enough funding from the clients to be able to pay for the fuel in a sustainable manner.”

He added that the World Bank had initiated a guarantee programme that ensures the payment liability of the PHCN toward the gas supplier, which are essentially the oil companies.

“The contribution of the World Bank is on three levels: One is the provision of partial risk guarantee which backs up the payment liability of the PHCN and minimizes the contingent liability that government will have to incur.

“Secondly, it also provides the needed transmission investment to make sure that power generated is able to flow. The third one is that it commits the bank to a deeper involvement to serve as broker between the suppliers and the buyers,” he explained.