Power supply in Nigeria has failed to improve on last week’s performance, as at fell by 22.9 per cent from peak generation of 4,115 Mega Watts on Saturday to 3,172.20MW as at 5pm on Sunday, latest data from the System Operator has shown.
According to the data, most power plants were operating far below capacity due to gas shortage with Olorunsogo power plant, 335MW capacity, and Sapele power plant, 450MW capacity, completely out. Egbin was generating at 746MW, Omoku 37.20, Omotosho (NIPP) at 105MW while Afam was generating at 80MW.
The data showed that on the average power generation in the past seven days were 4,120.9MW on Sunday 6 June, 4,249.4 on Monday 7 June, 4,000.9MW on Tuesday 8 June, 3,720.7 on Wednesday 9 June, 3,517 on Thursday 10 June, 3,765MW on Friday 11 June and 4,115MW on Saturday 12 June.
International Oil Companies, IOCs, had last warned that despite Nigeria’s huge gas reserves a lot needs to be done to attract investment to the sector to develop gas reserves to boost power generation in the country.
Speaking at the just concluded Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, the Chair, Shell Companies in Nigeria/MD SPDC, Osagie Okunbor said with 203 Trillion Cubic Feet of gas reserves, what was needed in the country is to deliver projects that would produce the gas.
“The challenge is not just growing the reserves but in producing these reserves for the benefits of our country. Essentially growing the reserves and delivering on the production is a function of two or three elements.
“I like to see infrastructure that is required for the development of these resources at two levels. Soft infrastructure is often the one that is more important than and that is the one that is actually drives most of what you see at site.
“Soft infrastructure refers to the enabling environment and nothing pleases me as much seeing both the Senate President and the speaker of the house give very firm commitments about trying to pass the PIB this month. That is probably the big one of the enabling environment to provide the kind of stability we also need all sorts of other issues we need to that we have discussed severally in terms of sanctity of contract, stable policies and collaboration and I think we are well on our way there”, he added.
