Nigeria Tries New Power Mix in Search for 60,000 Megawatts

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--The Nigerian power sector continues to send out mixed messages, but the range of possibilities being opened up in the current mixture is probably positive in contrast to past grandiose politically driven promises of additional power tomorrow.

At a conference of the Nigerian Mining and Geo Sciences Society, former minister of Petroleum Resources Chief Phillip Asidou said in November that the current power generation capacity is not enough to transform the country's materials and minerals into valuable goods for the local markets and for exports. He said the country needed a minimum of 60,000 megawatts (MW) of electric power to strengthen its economic drive and that 80% of this total should be gas-fed. He added that the federal government should invest urgently in the country's transmission and distribution systems. Nigeria's current power output does not exceed 3,000 MW (not counting output from thousands of small dedicated generator sets). Three power stations closed down because of lack of gas feed from the state utility.

At the beginning of December, the Coal-to-Power Consortium entered the mix and said that the coal from the Okaba field in Kogi state would solve Nigeria's power problem as the coal feed could sustain nine power stations. It proposed an investment of $7 billion in the first phase and the establishment of nine pithead power stations with a combined output of 5,000 MW. Drilling and seismic explorations will begin early in 2008 to determine the scope of the mining operations. If the project is started following the explorations, the consortium says all the power stations could be operational by 2010.The consortium consists of Nigeria's Western Goldfields, Netherlands financiers ITOI and China's Sino-Coal.

In the second week of December, South African construction company Group Five (Johannesburg) was awarded a $62 million contract for the design, supply and installation of a 130-MW power station at Aba in Abia state. The developer is Geometric Power Limited, a local private-sector company involved in the construction and operation of independent power plants for the generation, transmission and distribution of power to industrial clusters, commercial entities and the public.

The Aba project will consist of three GE LM6000 gas turbines with gas feed from an existing pipeline. Aba has a large cluster of industries that need a secure power supply. Construction is already underway, and the project is scheduled for completion in December 2008.

The Aba project is Group Five's second power project in the independent African power market. The company has completed the first stage of the $90 million Akwa Ibom power plant. The company is keeping its engineering division in a state of readiness for the expected large turnkey projects flowing from the power generation and distribution sector in Africa.

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