A steady improvement in the supply of gas to Nigeria’s troubled power plants appears to be steadily helping to improve power supply in the country, according to new data seen by Businessamlive.
Average national daily gas supply to Nigeria’s power plants has risen by 64 per cent, the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Financial and Operations Report for May 2017 released Thursday in Abuja has shown.
The average natural gas supply to the power of 729 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) in May 2017 was 63.74 per cent higher than the daily gas supply to the plants of 446 mmscfd during the same month in 2016.
The report said the average national daily gas production for May 2017 stood at 242.70 billion cubic feet or an average of 7,829.11 mmscfd, representing a slight increase, compared with April gas production of 672mmscfd.
NNPC said it activated plans to build 500mmscfd metering plant to serve the planned capacity expansion of Egbin power plant.
The report, like the previous one, is designed to encourage and maintain effective communication with stakeholders, the Nigerian national oil company said.
According to the report, with a minimum of 6 six million litres of petrol and a similar quantity diesel, loaded out daily, the three
refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna were operational in May 2017.
The corporation, however, said the rehabilitation of these refineries would restore their nameplate capacities.
It further stated that diesel price experienced a nationwide sudden decline by as much as 42 per cent alongside strategic intervention by the corporation to sustain the supply of diesel and avoid the first quarter 2017 unpleasant situation when retail price of the commodity shot to an all-time high of N300 per litre.
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The NNPC said the intervention pushed the product’s retail prices as at May 2017 to rally between N175 and N200 across the country.
Other high points of the May report stated that there was a decline in the incidents of oil pipeline breaks which had in recent times, experienced a steady reduction through the months following its sustained community/stakeholder’s engagement initiative.
The number of pipeline breaks recorded within the period stood at 55, which was an improvement compared to 82 vandalised points recorded in April 2017.
This figure, however, represents about 33 per cent reduction relative to the previous months and also a remarkable improvement to the corresponding periods of May 2016, which recorded 260 cases.
The report also said that NNPC stepped up efforts to actualise government’s initiative on co-location of some refineries.
Dammy Talabi
