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Egbin power plant loses N5.6bn to gas shortage

By BusinessNews Staff on April 30, 2014

The Chief Executive Officer, Egbin Power Plc, Mr. Mike Uzoigwe, has said that the 1,320-megawatts plant is losing N8.134 per kilowatt hour to gas shortage and other challenges and that this amounts to about N5.6bn annually.

He said this during an oversight tour of the plant by the House of Representatives Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation in Lagos on Monday.

Uzoigwe explained that with the help of the technical partners, Korea Electrical Power Nigeria Limited, the new owners of the power plant hoped to reduce the losses, while achieving 85 per cent power availability and 34 per cent efficiency.

He said about N7.3bn had been invested in the power plant between November 1, 2013 when it was handed over to the private investors, and now.

The total capacity of the plant is 1,320MW, while the available and dependable capacity stands at 1,080MW, with one of its six units out for over eight years now.

In view of this, the CEO announced a six-pronged major overhauling of the plant over the next two years with each phase costing N5bn.

According to him, the overhauling of Unit 1 has been scheduled for March 2015; Unit 2, October 2015; Unit 3, July 2015; Unit 4, October, 2014; Unit 5, January, 2016; and Unit 6, April, 2016.

All together, N30bn will be spent on rehabilitating the plant, he said.

Uzoigwe, however, lamented that despite injecting N18.3bn worth of power to the national grid, the market operators had delayed the company’s payment and this was affecting its operation.

“The invoice sent to the market operator by Egbin is N18.3bn but the total cash we should have got from the market operator for power generated for the past five months is N13.16bn. we have only got N6.5bn. We owe the Nigeria Gas Company N5.3bn, while our operation cost till date is N13bn; N573m has been lost from November 2013 till date,” he said.

The Chairman of the committee, Khadija Ibrahim, who said the committee had visited the Shiroro Hydro Power Plant and four distribution companies, decried gas shortage to power plants in the country and gave an assurance that the lawmakers would support the industry with the right legislation and ensure the speedy passage of the Petroleum Industry Bill.

She noted that the upgrade of the Ikeja Electricity Distribution Company’s contact centre to entertain calls from customers in the major Nigerian languages as well as fora with customers and Community Development Associations were healthy developments that would enhance the desired growth of the sector.

The Managing Director /Chief Executive Officer, IKEDC, Mr. Abiodun Ajifowobaje, said the company had since the handover adopted innovative approach to achieving quick wins in the face of the challenges of inadequate power supply, vandalism, energy theft and gas shortage.

[Punch]

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