Don't Miss

Power sector monthly invoiced revenue averages N23bn – PTFP

By BusinessNews Staff on April 26, 2014

The Presidential Task Force on Power (PTFP) yesterday stated that the total monthly invoiced revenue generated from exchanges in power generated in the electricity sector now averages about N23 billion.

PTFP however noted that the monthly revenue was in relation to Nigeria’s current electricity generation capacity which hovers around 3,500 to 4,000 megawatts (MW).

This came as the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation(NNPC) has expressed its determination to deliver commercial value for the federal government gas revolution agenda in order to ensure efficient gas–to-power, gas-to-industry and sufficient gas for domestic consumption.

The Chairman of PTFP, Beks Dagogo-Jack, disclosed this in Abuja at a roundtable meeting of chief executive officers of various government agencies in the Nigerian oil, gas, power and finance sectors.

The meeting was convened at the instance of the Nigerian Content Development Management Board (NCDMB) to build linkages between critical agencies whose activities have good impacts on the overall economic programme of the federal government especially with regards to building up Nigeria’s in-country capacities across various sectors and creating jobs for Nigerians.

While justifying the federal government’s decision to pay off workers of defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) as part of its privatisation programme for the power sector, Dagogo-Jack said: “If we were reluctant to pay off labour because of the huge demands they were asking, you have to look at the future.

And when you realise that on a monthly basis, our invoice at the current energy level is in the order of N23 billion, it means that in about 12 to 13 months, the market would have returned that amount of money and so there was no need to stay and fight labour over that money when there is darkness in the country.”

He noted that the country’s power sector requires the level of political will that it garnered in the run-off to the PHCN privatisation to sustain its growth, adding: “Typically, it is very difficult to move from where we are to where want to be. When I hear people talk about constant power supply as soon as we privatise, I tell them that it is a gradual process and it is the same in all of the country’s that have undertaken this sort of reform, we need the level of political will garnered in the privatisation process to sustain the growth of the market now.”

On the other hand, the Executive Secretary of NCDMB, Earnest Nwapa, stated that the meeting was called essentially to build synergy on the implementation local content development across major sectors of Nigeria’s economy.

Nwapa said: “We are public sector agencies working for the same federal government under the same transformation agenda of the government and in our case in the oil and gas industry, we have been able to structure an implementation programme for the local content and make a modest success off it and we felt that to take it to the entire economy, we need to mobilise other key sectors like power, telecoms, insurance.
“That is why we felt that it is important to bring the very tops of these agencies that we call linkage agencies to come together and lets actually sit down to say that if the minister of petroleum can fix this within her industry, why don’t we take it around the entire economy.

“So, it has been very exciting and all the CEOs are committed to transferring the practice of local content into their activities but more importantly, to bring the linkages and let us see and learn from the lessons from the experience of each other especially with what the local content has done for the Nigerian oil and gas industry so that it can permeate the nation’s economy.

“We have not gotten 100 per cent of the local content potential in the oil and gas industry but we can do that when we expand the market share across board. Why should we import pipes for our water supply works but use made in Nigeria pipes for oil and gas operations? We should use the same pipes in the water sector too. We need to take the culture beyond the oil and gas sector so that other sectors can benefit and Nigerians can have jobs.”

Recall that the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) had recently put out a draft law to promote application of local contents in operations within the country’s emerging power industry.

Meanwhile, the Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Andrew Yakubu, at the the combined opening ceremony of the batches 073 to 079 capacity building programme of the corporation tagged: ‘Chief Officers Management Development programme at the NNPC Towers, Abuja, noted that the NNPC is saddled with the responsibility of ensuring that the abundant gas value chain is explored maximally, stressing that the corporation must do everything possible to make the gas revolution agenda succeed in every ramification.

In challenging the participants, Yakubu admonished the participants to come up with creative ways of dealing with the target of fully monetising the gas resource endowment of the nation which he said remained a crucial deliverable of the federal government’s gas revolution agenda.
He emphasiaed that the management was fully committed to supporting the capacity development programme and will continue to provide all resources required to sustain its growth of the programme.

Delivering a lecture on ‘Gas Commercialisation and Economic Growth,’ Professor Pat Utomi of the Lagos Business School, posited that the NNPC was required to deliver on the mandate of the gas-to-power strategy execution and effectiveness.

He asserted that there was every need for the NNPC to build human capital focused at the gas knowledge economy that will ensure domestic gas utilization and provision of strong gas infrastructure to protect the environment and bottle the gas for effective consumption.
The Group Executive Director, Corporate Services, Dr. Dan Efebo, assured the participants of the preparedness of management to expose them to knowledge that will deliver on the various core mandates of the Corporation.

The Chief Officer’s Management Development Programme (COMDP), batches 073-079 comprises of a total of 375 and they are expected to run a four-module programme which includes leadership, problem solving research work, oil and gas fundamentals and emerging trends in oil and gas industry.

The programme, which is mandatory for senior members of staff has equipped staff with skills and competences for transition to management cadre in the last 24 years of the corporation.

[This Day]

headline