Vandals Sabotaged Power Generation Target For 2014 – FG — Dec 23, 2014 The federal government has said that incessant vandalism of gas pipelines across the country sabotaged efforts to achieve its power generation target for 2014. The federal government had projected power generation to peak at a minimum of 5,000 megawatts (MW) by the end of December 2014. However, the country’s power generation presently hovers between 3,600MW and 3,800MW due to disruptions occasioned by gas pipeline breaches, officials of the ministry of power have said. Speaking in Abuja at a forum organised for energy correspondents, minister of power, Professor Chinedu Nebo, lamented that the continuing vandalism of pipelines supplying gas to power plants was undermining effort to boost power generation in the country. Nebo, who was represented by the senior advisor on fuel to power to the minister of power, Frank Edozien, disclosed that at least 20 incidences of vandalism occurred on major gas pipelines across the country between May and November this year. He called on Nigerians to join hands with government to check the activities of vandals in order to make progress in the sector. Nebo, at the forum, which, had in attendance heads of media units of agencies under the ministry, lamented that despite a generation capacity of about 7,000MW, the country is presently generating about 3,600MW due incidences of vandalism. He pointed out that the country can get out of the rot if the attacks on power infrastructure are reduced to the barest minimum, or totally eliminated. “We have frequency of four to six weeks where pipelines are blown up and this affects the ability that we have to generate power. We currently have available capacity to deliver roughly 7,000MW of power. But because we are constrained by volumes of gas available, we can do about 4000-4500MW.” Speaking further he said, “In mid-November we did hit about 4200-4500MW generation but today we are doing 3,600MW because gas pipelines have been blown up. So the pattern is, we go up to 4000-4200MW, the pipelines get blown up and then we are down to 3000-3100MW.” He added that as repairs are effected depending on the nature of the pipeline breach, it would take four to six weeks and, in the case of the Lagos-Escravos system, it took six months to fix, which was damaged in nine places.” On the other hand, Nebo announced January 1, 2015, as the effective date for the declaration of the Transitional Electricity Market (TEM). The TEM declaration will mark the take-off of all vesting and contractual obligations precedent in the nation’s fledging electricity market. The minister, who disclosed this at a stakeholders’ forum yesterday in Abuja, said that the main focus of TEM would be the consummation of all contractual obligations as stipulated in the electricity market rules. He explained that the TEM declaration was not the start of the transition, but an attempt to make the market more mature and robust. Leadership.
Posted on: Tue, 23 Dec 2014 19:10:56 +0000
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