Despite getting 66.53 per cent of the
total amount of domestic gas supply for one year, Nigeria’s electricity
generation has remained low.
Figures obtained on Friday (5.21pm) by
our correspondent from the country’s power System Operator indicated
that electricity generation had dropped further to 2,035.20MW.
This showed a drop of about 800MW from 2,841.9MW, which was given as of 12.42pm on Thursday by the SO.
Ironically, the latest data from the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation showed that the percentage
allocation of gas to power plants in Nigeria from February 2015 to the
end of January this year was far higher than what was allocated to
manufacturing sector.
The report stated that although the
power plants received close to 70 per cent of the total domestic gas
allocation, power generation in Nigeria had continued to hover around
3,000 megawatts to 3,500 megawatts. The Federal Government had early
last year set a 2015 target of at least 6,000MW.
Although there had been series of
complaints of gas pipelines rupturing by vandals, the latest figures
from the NNPC’s group financial report showed specifically that
gas-fired power plants got an average of 701.84 million standard cubic
feet of gas per day or 66.53 per cent from February 2015 to January
2016, as against the 353.06mmscfd or 33.47 per cent gas that was
supplied to industries.
Even as they admitted that gas supply to
power had been high when compared with what industries got, they
maintained that until the trend of vandalism in the power and oil/gas
sectors reduced considerably or stopped, the issue of low electricity
generation might persist.
The Minister of State for Petroleum
Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, had during the first stakeholders meeting
involving operators in the power and oil/gas sectors, said that he would
ensure that there was adequate gas supply for electricity generation,
but frowned at the level of pipeline vandalism.
Similarly, the Executive Director,
Association of Nigerian Electricity Distributors, Mr. Sunday Oduntan,
told our correspondent that the low electricity generation was not
entirely the fault of power firms.
He noted, for instance, that the fall in
electricity generation earlier in March this year was as a result of
the industrial action by workers in the transmission arm of the power
sector.
Oduntan said, “The recent fall in power
generation to 2,800MW happened when workers were picketing Ikeja
Electricity Distribution Company and the union mandated the transmission
persnnel in Osogbo to go on strike.
“After they embarked on strike, there
was nobody to wheel the energy from generation to distribution
companies. And this led to high temperature in the generation companies
and they were forced to shut down. That’s what happened during that
period early this month.”
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