Forcados, Escravos Pipeline Damage Constrain Generation Of 3,132MW – Osinbajo

The damage of Shell’s Forcados export terminal pipeline and the vandalism of the Lagos Escravos pipeline in February, has resulted in the constraint of 3,132 megawatts (MW) Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has said.

The vice president disclosed this while speaking yesterday at the 9th international conference of Nigeria Association of Energy Economics/International Association of Energy Economists (NAEE/IAEE), in Abuja, with the theme, “Energising Emerging Economies: Role of Natural Gas and Renewable Energy Resources”.

This is even as the President of NAEE, Prof Wumi Iledare, who supported the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector, stated that government has no business fixing the price of an economic good like petrol. According to him, the price should be determined by the market reality and should sell for about N120 a litre. This way he said, marketers will sell without hoarding the products while consumers will buy with any crisis.

Meanwhile, according to the vice president, the incident on the pipelines have cut gas supply to power plants in the Western Axis such as Egbin, Omotosho 1, Olorinsogo 1, Ughelli, Omotosho NIPP and Olorunsogo NIPP leading to 3,132MW being constrained.

Osinbajo who was represented by his Special Assistant on Renewable Energy, Chiedu Ugbo, noted that although Nigeria is described as more a gas territory than an oil territory, data from the System Operator (SO) show that the average energy generated and sent out for distribution to end users in the past week was less than 4,000MW due largely to gas constraints.

He said presently the country has over 12,500MW of installed electricity generation capacity with about 7,000MW of that ready to generate if required gas is available.

Underscoring the need for investment in the sector, he said the challenges faced in the sector is as a result of many years of underinvestment in gas gathering and processing for domestic consumption, in addition to many years of gas flaring. “Nigeria alone flares about half of 40 billion cubic meters of associated gas estimated to be flared in Africa annually,” he said.

To reverse the trend, he said the present administration plans investment in alternative energy to energise and power Nigeria’s economy for economic growth and development.

Speaking earlier, President of NAEE, Prof. Wumi Iledare, stated that “It is foolhardy to perpetually develop oil and gas resources primarily for cash or revenue rather than use the resources to energise the economy. He pointed out that the current institutional governance structure of the petroleum sector is weak and confusing. He said policy, regulatory and commercial institutions are currently indistinguishable while the delineation of institutional roles remains elusive