NNPC Assures of Gas Capacity to Generate 6,000MW Power in Q2

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has said it has capacity to produce gas for the generation of 6,000MW by second quarter of 2017.

NNPC’s Group Managing Director, Dr. Maikanti Baru stated this in Abuja last week during this year’s Oloibiri ecture series with theme: “Domestic Gas Utilization in Nigeria: From Producers to User.”

He disclosed that the power sector is currently battling how to evacuate 4,500MW becuase the power distribution companies’ rejection of load allocation and constraints from transmission line.

“As we speak today, there is enough gas to generate about 4800MW and 6000MW by Q2 2017 based on our gas supply plan but the power sector is presently struggling to evacuate 4500MW power due to DISCOs incessant rejection of allocated load and transmission line constraints,” he said.

He however appealed to the militants in the Niger Delta to stop vandalizing pipeline infrastructure in order to sustain the current plan and grow the instrument for the benefit of the citizenry.

According to him, ” Gas pipeline vandalism has been the most disruptive challenge to supply across the country, but more recently in the West. The Trans Forcados crude oil pipeline (TFP) has been the major victim of attacks, so also the ELPS gas pipeline has seen surprising increase in attacks.

“Crude oil theft related outage of crude oil pipelines is also a challenge in the East with recurrent breach of the Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP) almost on a weekly basis. The result of this is major disruption of gas supply in the East impacting on three power plants at Afam belonging to NNPC/SPDC JV, PHCN and RVSG.”

The NNPC boss said that with respect to commercial frame work, the gas prices of the different sectors had been announced and was being applied.