More gas for power generation as Total invests $900m in gas facility

Gas supply to the Nigerian power sector is set to receive a boost as Total Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited is set to push about 300 million standard cubic feet (SCF) of gas into the domestic market when it complete its $900 million gas project in the upgraded Oil Mining License (OML) 58.

About 100 million SCF of the gas is to go into Alaoji Power Plant, while the remaining 200 million SCF would be pushed into the domestic gas market for industrial uses.

Ahmadu-Kida Musa, deputy managing director of the company, disclosed this while giving an update on the upgraded OML 58 in Port Harcourt, yesterday.

According to Musa, the gas project that will facilitate the 300 million SCF is 97 percent completed and would help to boost gas supply to the Easter grid of the domestic gas market. He said the supply of gas to the grid would come through the Northern Option Pipeline (NOPL).

“We are ready to send the gas now but we are waiting for the completion of the NOPL, which consist 24 inch pipeline laid across 50 kilometres, which included two above-the-ground installations,” he said.

He lamented the current low level of power generation, which he attributed to shortage of gas, saying Nigeria should be aiming at 80,000 megawatts in the year 2020 and not 40,000 megawatts if things were right.

To him, the company is at the stage of commissioning the pipelines that would facilitate gas supply, as the country has a lot of gas potentials, which if it can tap would give enough resources.

Total, he said, is committed to the gamut of all energy needs of Nigeria, as it represents 10 percent of Total Group worldwide.

Also speaking on the $16 billion Egina project, which is expected to start the production of 200,000 barrels of oil in 2018, Musa said the project was 53 percent completed and would bring a lot of benefits to Nigeria.

“Despite the difficulties encountered at the time, the project came up. Total still comply with the Nigerian Content law as all the engineering was done locally here in country,” he said.

The Total boss said about 70 percent of the project was being carried out in-country, saying that a lot of people were sent out to acquire skill locally and internationally with most of the people trained retained to work on the projects.

The framework of Egina, he said, has always been local content development, adding that for one day in March 2017, the Apapa Wharf would be shut down for the floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) to come to LADOL facilities in Lagos.

The FPSO, which is currently being built in South Korea, when it berths in Nigeria, would have to do some turning around for the modules that are being built at LADOL to be integrated into the FPSO.  In the course of doing this, it would stop other vessel from coming to the wharf for that day because they would be blocked.