Gas Shortage Stalls $800m Geometric Power Electricity Generation

Electricity generation at the $800 million Aba Integrated Power Project built to accelerate the industrial development of Aba in Abia and its environs and serve as a model of electricity development in Nigeria, is currently being hampered following insufficient supply of gas.

The plant has the capacity to generate 141MW from its three General Electric (GE) turbines and provide uninterrupted, quality and affordable electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State which it services and export some 50MW potential excess power to the national grid to make power more available to other places in Nigeria.

Geometric Power, which owns and operates the facility complains that acute shortage of natural gas supply to its 188-megawatt plant in the Osisioma Industrial Estate in Aba, Abia State, is affecting the state’s economic growth.

“Due to the grave shortage of gas, we have been constrained to import 25 megawatts from the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) at a huge cost, just to ensure that our customers have supplies, no matter the cost to us,” the Managing Director of Aba Power, Ugo Opiegbe said.

Opiegbe added that, “It is a supreme irony that though we are ready to generate 141MW from our three General Electric (GE) turbines and provide uninterrupted, quality and affordable electricity to nine of the 17 local government areas in Abia State we service and export some 50MW potential excess power to the national grid to make power more available to other places in Nigeria, we are importing electricity because of the grave gas constraints”.

The company noted that the Aba RingFence needs about 90MW, which it can generate from two of its installed three turbines, with a capacity of 47MW each.

“Therefore, the 25MW from the NDPHC is like a drop of water in the ocean. The unreliable gas supply is affecting hundreds of thousands of our customers, particularly manufacturing firms for whose sake Geometric Power built the $800m Aba Integrated Power Project to accelerate the industrial development of Aba and its environs and serve as a model of electricity development in Nigeria, a promising nation whose growth has been hampered seriously over the decades by the absence of such basic infrastructure as reliable power,” it pointed out.

Regarded as the biggest private sector investment in the Southeast, the Aba power integrated project was commissioned last February 26 by vice president, Kashim Shettima on behalf of President Bola Tinubu.

According to an engineer and gas expert who used to be a Shell executive, Ogbonna Chukwueke, Geometric Power signed an agreement with the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) in 2009 for the supply of 43 million standard cubic feet of gas (MSCF) from its Oil Mining Licences (OMLs) 11 and 17 in Owaza, Ukwa East Local Government Area of Abia State, for its four turbines to produce 47MW each.