Former Chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Dr Ransome Owan has said that inadequate gas supply is the bane of power generation in the country.
He said this in Abuja on Monday at the Powering Africa Nigeria Summit, where he stated that the power plants built under the National Integrated Power Project (NIPP) scheme are not operational because of inadequate gas supply to power them.
According to him “Even with over $5billion invested in the NIPPs, they are down as gas is not there to power them. The projects cannot come to a financial close because there is not enough gas for the plants.
Owan decried a situation where the government entered into agreements to build power plants without a concrete gas supply agreement to supply the power stations.
“The Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) cannot sign their Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) unless they answer these two things: do you have gas and can you evacuate power? And the seller, which is the government, cannot answer the questions,” he said.
Furthermore, he urged the government to use the retinue of security agencies at its disposal to protect gas supply infrastructure, stating that the International Oil Companies operating in the country have no blame in the poor gas supply problem
“To have a sustainable gas sector, the risk should not be with the IOCs, the gas transporters or the power companies. It is the federal government of Nigeria because it has the army, the joint taskforce to protect the infrastructure,” he declared.
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