The endless power failure in Nigeria

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The epileptic supply of electricity across the country has persisted and is not likely to go soon as vandalism of pipelines has prolonged the perennial shortage of gas to thermal power plants.
This is coming as the System and Market Operation Departments of the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) monday explained why Nigeria’s current electricity generation has remained quite low in recent weeks, blaming the situation on gas shortages to the generation plants in the southern part of the country.
 TCN also explained that each time the country’s electricity generation falls below 3,500 megawatts (MW), there will be little power in the dedicated spinning reserve, hence the possibility of transmission system collapse.
press gathered that the country has witnessed persisted power outages in recent weeks after the much-celebrated all-time peak of 5,074 megawatts of electricity generation on February 2, 2016, following months of honeymoon enjoyed by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari with respect to pipeline vandalism.
Checks revealed that recent attacks on crude oil and gas pipelines may have signalled the end of the honeymoon and ushered in a period of darkness witnessed in recent weeks, as vandalism of gas pipelines disrupted supply of feedstock to gas-fired power generating plants, which account for over 78 per cent of power supply in the country.
The situation had worsened last Thursday when the whole country was plunged into darkness due to a nationwide system collapse.
The Chief Executive Officer of one of the electricity distribution companies (Discos) told press yesterday that during last Thursday’s system disturbance, the 11 distribution companies were only “on station supply” where they could not service their customers. 
“When you are on station supply, there is no power to give to your customers. This is because some power plants went down due to non-supply of gas. The only power you get from the national grid when you are on station supply is what you will use to run your base radio. You can’t send it to customers,” the CEO, who opted not to be quoted, said.
He also blamed weak transmission network for the country’s current power woes, saying that only a super grid would solve the country’s transmission challenges.
“Transmission will continue to be a problem until the country has super transmission grid. Super transmission grid is a model transmission line that can take huge power. We need to construct super grid to reduce system collapse,” he added.
But a top official of the Nigeria Electricity System Operator said that vandalism was responsible for the current drop in power supply.
“Gas pipelines have been vandalised and they are doing it continuously. Some plants went down last week because of lack of gas and it caused system collapse. So, it is really not a transmission problem,” said the official.
Also a Chief Executive Officer of one of the oil and gas exploration and production (E &P) companies, who did not want to be quoted, told THISDAY that the current poor power situation was caused by vandalism of the Forcados pipeline.
According to him, the problem of E &P companies was not the drop in oil price but production deferment caused by vandalism of oil and gas pipelines.
“Last year, we suffered almost 100 days of production deferment out of 365 days in the year. We are just beginning this year and we have suffered almost 50 days. All the companies using Forcados pipeline have not been producing since the past six weeks but they are doing all they can to evacuate condensate gas to keep delivering gas for power generation. If they have not been doing that, the current power situation would have been worse,” he explained.
The Trans-Forcados Pipeline, which is operated by Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), belongs to the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC), a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).
Shell had on February 21, 2016 declared force majeure on Forcados liftings effective 1500hrs (Nigerian time), following the disruption in production caused by the spill on the Forcados Terminal subsea crude oil export pipeline.
According to Shell, diving teams, which inspected the export pipeline reported extensive damage that was consistent with the application of external force, an indication that it was sabotage.
The closure of the oil pipeline, which also accounts for 40-50 per cent of the country’s gas production led to the current drop in power generation.
The pipeline is a crude oil facility, but the gas and liquid condensates produced from gas fields in the western Niger Delta are evacuated through the pipeline, hence its closure has also affected the supply of gas to the power stations.
However, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, said the repair of the pipeline could last up till May.

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