5 February 2010
Electricity Hopes Dim as PHCN shut down 4 plants
Posted by admin under: Uncategorized .
Culled from an article By Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Thisday Newpaper of 02/02/10
Following the gas supply crisis which has hit Nigeria’s power sector, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) has shut down four of its plants, thereby reducing electricity generation to 2,700 megawatts.
Speaking at a ministerial press briefing by the Minister of Power, Dr. Lanre Babalola, yesterday in Abuja, the Managing Director of PHCN, Mr. Labo Husein, said the gas situation had become critical to the extent that most of the affected generating plants were forced to wind down operations with the attendant backlash on the available capacity to the national grid.
Husein gave the list of the affected plants to as Geregu, Sapele, Olorunsogu and Omotosho. The MD who was asked to respond to media enquiries on the state of power generation by Babalola however said the other two power stations Okpai-Agip and Afam VI operated by Agip and Shell respectively were both running at full capacity.
“PHCN total power generation as at today is 2,700mw but actual power generation capacity is now 4,000mw,” he said.
According to Husein, a lot the company’s generating facilities of had continued to remain idle due to lack of gas to power them.
Babalola, who had earlier apologised to Nigerians over the “below-target” performance recorded last year in the power sector, said the problem at improving power supply was caused by the unstable gas supply situation.
He said last year’s target of 6,000mw of electricity was made in anticipation that Chevron and PanOcean gas projects as well as gas facility being put together by the Nigerian Petroleum Development Corporation (NPDC) would come on stream as scheduled but that the gas facilities could not be completed.
Read the rest of this article in Thisday
