GE reiterates commitment to power, health, aviation sectors

General Electric (GE) has reiterated its commitment to Nigeria saying that it recent reorganisation will not affect its obligations to Nigeria, which are manifested in power, Health and aviation sectors. But it may affect how the company’s team is structured.

The reorganisation would rather strengthened the relationship between the company and Nigeria, says Alex Dimitrief, senior vice president, GE, president and CEO, GE Global Growth Organisation.

The GE boss who paid an official visit to Nigeria in an exclusive interview with BusinessDay said the exercise would make the company operations in Nigeria and Africa more efficient and focused.

“It may affect how our team is structured but it will not affect the level of our operations or investments in the country and Africa. The customers would not see any changes in the way the company operates in Nigeria”, he said.

He said his discussions in Nigeria with government officials, customers and other stakeholders focused on the future of GE in the country and Africa. But more importantly on the distribution, transmission and generation aspects of the power sector.

He said the company believes in bringing the best technology to the Nigeria so as to ensure sustainability in its operations across board, adding that GE control about 40 per cent of the power equipment in Nigeria.

GE Power Services signed a Service Agreement with Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) for its 650MW Afam VI combined cycle power plant located in the South-eastern part of the country. The plant which provides enough electricity to over three million Nigerian homes at peak performance, will expect to improve its availability, reliability and output for up to 200.000 Nigerian homes, while decreasing its operational costs.

The GE Hydro team also recently commenced the general rehabilitation of the 80MW Hydro Turbine Generator unit -1G7 at Kainji through its partnership with Mainstream Energy.

It signed an MOU with Mainstream at the beginning of the year to deliver renewable power projects in Nigeria. Under the MOU, both companies will jointly work to implement the Kainji and Jebba Power Plants Recovery Plan, as well as improve the generation and evacuation infrastructure for grid connectivity of Kainji to the West African Power Pool. In addition, it will lead to the development of other Hydro Power potentials in Nigeria and West Africa.

There was also an MOU signed with the Northern States Governors Forum to deliver 500MW of Solar Power across Northern Nigeria through captive and utility scale projects. These critical initiatives will increase the electrification rate in Nigeria and provide the needed power for industrialization and economic growth.

In the health sector, GE Healthcare’s MOU with the Federal Government is focused on 5 areas for Healthcare infrastructure development in Nigeria: developing diagnostic centers and specialist hospitals; rural health solutions; smallholder medical facility scheme;

In the last 5 years, GE’s milestones in transportation include modernization and expansion of Nigeria’s locomotive fleet. Right now, GE is working with private sector participants to develop a locomotive assembly facility. That facility would modernize 30 old locomotive engines and assemble 170 new locomotives. The company is also acting on the order to supply locomotives to the Nigerian Rail Corporation (NRC) as part of the country’s fleet renewal program. Other milestones include consigning 25 NRC locomotives (Delivery between February and October 2010); Training of 10 NRC engineers in Brazil (June 2010); Training over 100 NRC maintenance and service engineers in Lagos and supporting Eko Rail Company with the Lagos Metro Blue line light rail project.