Energy
Nigeria’s Next President Must Be Brave About Power Sector – CEO, Century Power
By Edozie Obasi-Eze
The crisis-ridden power sector in Nigeria can be easily solved, only if the incoming administration would give the sector the kind of attention it deserves.
Chief Executive Officer, Century Power Generation Limited, Dr Chukwueloka Umeh, expressed the opinion at an online interactive session with media men.
According to him, the next administration, in Nigeria must from its first day in office declare a national emergency on the power sector.
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Dr Umeh who also serves as an Executive Director of Nestoil Ltd as well as the CEO of Nesto Aviation Services Ltd., warned that the current problems in the sector would continue, or even get compounded, if the next government fails to deploy professionals to head the ministry of power and its agencies.
He observed that Nigeria’s power sector was beset with weak infrastructure, illiquidity as well as the issue of square pegs in round holes, leaving the country with over 200 million persons with just a meagre 4,000mw.
The former General Electric Company official noted with concern that while Egypt for example, with about half of Nigeria’s population is producing 57,000mw, while Nigeria continues to struggle to produce 4,000 megawatts. He described the situation as embarrassing and criminal.
In his words, “We should all hide our heads in shame as a country. Some years ago, Nigeria produced 5000mw and everybody was celebrating. I was like have these people lost their minds?”
Dr Umeh made it clear that whoever becomes the next Nigerian president must understand the critical importance of the sector, cut bureaucracy and free the sector from undue government interference, except in a regulatory role.
“It is my hope that whoever is the next president will understand that they need to do something drastically different. They need to be brave. They need to show political bravery and do the right thing.
“They need to remove government handouts from the industry and just have government as a regulator. The administration needs to make sure that the person in charge of the power industry is somebody that understands the industry.
“We don’t want just an administrator. We need somebody that clearly understands the industry, somebody like Prof Barth Nnaji who was the minister of power under Goodluck Jonathan; who is a player in the industry.
“He understood the industry well, and he had the motivation to make it work. So we need somebody like that running the industry. Whoever is the president next year, needs to treat this industry as an emergency. Which means they need to remove all the red tapes stopping things being done quickly,” he added.
According to the Aerospace Engineer, Nigeria should go beyond mere consultations, committees and conferences to the execution of the blueprint to revamp the sector.
“We need to quickly remove the government’s fingers from every part of the sector: Generation, transmission and distribution, and have those people who are not doing well either removed or they are set clear timelines for to fix the problem.
“The next administration needs to reduce the regulations that are barring new entrants from coming into the industry,” he added.
According to Dr Umeh, the Century Power Generation Limited has for years been pursuing a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company Limited (NBET) without success despite the ready international funding for its project in the country.
“I can tell you today. We have spent about a year or more trying to get approval to move gas on the existing pipeline. It is one meeting after the other. This thing should take about two weeks to do. It is taking over a year and we go to meetings, you speak English, you generate minutes of meetings and reschedule for another one, just talking and wasting resources.
“So these things need to be made very quick. Remove all the red tape and allow us to do proper business. I tell people it is not rocket science, but even if it is rocket science, we have rocket scientists,” he maintained.
He pointed out that presently, “there are a lot of people in the industry who have no business being in the power industry because they don’t understand the sector.
“There are a lot of supposed experts that when you speak to them for five minutes, it becomes clear that they don’t really know much about the industry.”
In the short term, he disclosed that Century Power would keep pushing to have a power purchase agreement signed and executed by the government, while working on utility scale plants that may not be as large as the 1,500mw Okija power plant owned by the company.
“They are not quite as large as Okija plant. Just about 20 to 100 megawatts to supply directly industrial clusters and Discos, this is what we’ve been working on doing and to make it in such a way that it will be economically viable to us and to the off-takers,” he explained.
Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Ltd (SNEPCo) rode on new wells, optimized reservoir and optimal facility management to produce more oil at Bonga in 2023 than the previous one, a review of operations has shown.
Biztellers reports that Nigeria’s first deep-water development produced some 138,000 barrels of oil per day (boepd) in 2023 compared to around 101,000 in 2022.
The improvement, Biztellers gathered, was driven by drilling of new wells, optimising reservoir and facility management and excellent asset management, inter alia.
Managing Director, SNEPCo, Elohor Aiboni, said, “Bonga continues to justify the investments and hard work that led to its discovery.
“The uptick in production is the result of commitment by staff, continuous improvements in production processes and maintenance and the support of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Ltd (NNPC) and our co-venture partners – TotalEnergies Nigeria Limited, Nigerian Agip Exploration and Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited.
“Working together, we will continue to power lives and deliver value to all stakeholders.”
Recall that Bonga began production in November 2005 through the 225,000-barrels-per-day capacity Bonga FPSO, anchored 120 kilometres offshore. The FPSO exported the 1 billionth barrel of oil last year.
The operations have resulted in remittance of taxes and royalties to the Government of Nigeria to finance development, development of indigenous contactors and service providers, and a wide-ranging social investment portfolio which has improved lives across the country.
The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) has reassured industry stakeholders that oil and gas service companies that have established capacities in the country will continue to enjoy patronage.
The Executive Secretary, NCDMB, Engr. Felix Omatsola Ogbe made this commitment on Friday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State when he led officials of the Board and Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) to visit companies that deliver pipe coating and related services.
The team visited Brightwaters Energy Limited, formerly known as Willbros Nigeria Ltd, Solewant Nigeria Limited and Pipe Coaters Nigeria, managed by Tenaris Nigeria Ltd.
According to the ES, the visits were to assess the companies’ facilities and determine how the Board can galvanize the industry to patronise them.
He underscored the importance of getting first-hand information on in-country capabilities before making key decisions on oil and gas projects. He insisted that operating companies must support and patronise local oil and gas service companies in compliance with the provisions of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act.
Ogbe emphasized that activities in the Nigerian oil and gas industry must be used to create employment opportunities for the nation’s teeming youths and help to resuscitate the economy, in line with the aspirations of President Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
The Chief Executive Officer of Brightwaters Energy Limited, Scott Gregory thanked the ES for leading the visit while highlighting that Brightwaters carried out Nigeria’s first pipe coating in 1962.
He recalled that the facility had 3,000 employees some years back, executing various spheres of oil and gas projects. He conveyed the management’s aspiration to return the
firm to those high-performance levels and sought the Board’s support to win oil and gas projects that would resuscitate the sprawling facility.
“We feel that we can be a positive contributor to Nigeria through the capacities that we have. We want to bring real, true value to the table,” he added.
He admitted that the coating facility had suffered downtime, but assured that the plant would be up and running within 60 days of the award of a new contract.
The Chairman of Tenaris Nigeria, Dr. Ernest Nwapa welcomed the NCDMB’s team to PCNL’s facilities.
He commended the efforts made by the agency to push local content in the industry, attributing it to the good culture that had been established at the Board over the years.
Nwapa, who was the pioneer Executive Secretary of the NCDMB expressed delight that some of the oil and gas projects that had been pending for nearly ten years were now being developed and expressed hope that existing local capacities would be maximized in the execution of those projects.
The team was taken around the company’s facilities and shown the various equipment of PCNL in readiness for the award of new contracts.
Nwapa pledged the commitment of the company to meet the expectations of clients as well as allow them to participate in the supervision of the work in their factory.
The PCNL facility covers an area of 160,000 m2 in the Onne Free Trade Zone. The company offers Anticorrosion, CWC, Thermal Insulation, Internal and Bends Coating plants as well as Double Jointing and Anode Installation Facilities.
At Solewant Group, an EPCI and Pipe Coating Company, the NCDMB delegation was shown round the company’s facilities as well as the new investments, such as the 5mega watts generators, procured to guarantee power supply to the facility.
Accompanying Engr. Ogbe on the facility visits were the Director Projects Certification and Authorization Division (PCAD), Engr. Abayomi Bamidele, General Manager PCAD, Engr. Maurice Iwhiwhu, Special Technical Assistant (STA) to the Executive Secretary, Engr. Mofe Megbele, Deputy Manager, Corporate Communications, Mr. Obinna Ezeobi, and other staff members of the Board.
The SPDC team was led by the General Manager, Nigerian Content Development, Mr.Lanre Olawuyi.
The NNPC Exploration and Production Limited (NNPC E&P Ltd), NNPC Ltd’s flagship upstream subsidiary, and Natural Oilfield Services Ltd (NOSL), a subsidiary of Sterling Oil Exploration & Energy Production Company Ltd (SEEPCO), has announced the successful commencement of oil production at Oil Mining Lease (OML) 13 in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria.
Biztellers reports that the production commenced on the 6th of May 2024 with 6,000 barrels of oil with expectations to be ramped up to 40,000 barrels per day by May 27th, 2024.
The first oil flow from OML 13 is a historic milestone in the partnership between NNPC E&P Ltd and NOSL, highlighting their dedication to driving growth and development in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector, which remains a vital component of the nation’s economy.
The achievement does not only signify the culmination of rigorous planning and execution by the teams involved, but also represents a new era of economic empowerment and development opportunities for the host communities.
Furthermore, for Nigeria, the first oil from OML 13 holds some significance as it contributes to the country’s efforts to increase its oil production capacity, which is crucial for meeting domestic energy needs and driving economic growth.
The NNPC E&P Ltd and NOSL partnership is also committed to operating in a manner that is safe, environmentally responsible, and beneficial to the local communities.
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