The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is set to establish about five Gigawatts of additional power into the network as well as deliver an additional 5,000 megawatts of electricity to the national power grid once the ongoing gas projects throughout the country is completed.
NNPC Group Managing Director, Mallam Mele Kyari, who spoke during a virtual event organised by the Nigerian Gas Association themed: “Powering Forward: Enabling Nigeria’s Industrialisation Via Gas,” said the NNPC was committed to fulfilling President Muhammadu Buhari’s directive to boost domestic gas supply.
Represented by the Chief Operating Officer, Gas and Power, Mr. Yusuf Usman, Kyari stated that progress was being made on several of the projects, including the NLNG Train 7, with a foreign direct investment of between $3 billion and $5 billion.
He listed others as the AKK, which he described as one the largest and most aggressive gas infrastructure that has ever been embarked upon in Nigeria, stretching 614 km from Ajaokuta, Abuja, Kaduna and Kano, and Lot B of the OB3 gas project, which is already producing 125 mmscfd of gas.
Kyari stated that by the end of this quarter, the project would “cross the River Niger”, which will successfully create a highway to move the huge gas resources in the eastern area to the west.
He said the NNPC was looking to establish two gas hubs, one at Oben and the other at Brass, adding that one of the presidential mandates is to deliver on gas and power and create a market in the domestic environment that will consume the planned 4.5bcf of gas.
According to him, for the first time, the corporation, in collaboration with its partners, are able to raise about $260m within Nigerian merchant banks and two African banks for the Asa north gas project.
He said: “Something we need to emphasize in terms of gas utilisation in Nigeria is the power sector. All our projections have shown that 60 to 70 per cent of this gas that we hope to sell off the 4.5 bcf will come from power.
“At the moment, the power sector is challenged and all efforts have to be put in to unlock the liquidity in the downstream sector and expand the transmission network. This will enable us to sell the gas we have already invested in and enhance the economic prosperity of the country.
“Within the NNPC, we are looking to establish about five gigawatts of additional power into the network. So, NNPC is engaging with the stakeholders to resolve the power sector issue so that investment that has been made in generating gas can be realised.”
Kyari also stated that the NNPC had begun to create a link between the domestic gas pipelines infrastructure and export gas pipelines to create an outlet into the export route which will make the projects more bankable.
Text culled from Thisday
