Fashola Blames Drop in Electricity Supply on Illiquidity, Vandalism of Gas Facilities

• FEC reviews contract for Odogunyan sub-station
Tobi Soniyi 
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, yesterday in Abuja blamed the recent collapse in power generation on the cash crunch in the power sector, vandalism and other factors.

Fashola, who briefed State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) presided over by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said gas  suppliers were being owed money by generation and distribution companies (Gencos and Discos).

Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed was with Fashola during the briefing.
Fashola explained that because suppliers were not fully paid, there had been a back and forth situation between the Discos and Gencos

He said apart from the sabotage in the western axis of the Niger Delta, the Escravos Lagos pipeline and the Forcados export terminal had been out of operation.
The minister said: “If you can’t produce oil, you cannot take the gas. The gas is the fuel that the power plants need.

“You have seen what we have been doing in increasing the capacity in firing transmission but if we don’t have fuel to fire the plants, that is the reason.

“What then happens on the grid is that once it goes below 3,000 MW, it becomes unstable. It is like in your house when you have surges and your circuit breakers trip to protect the system.

“So once it falls below a certain threshold, you have those trip offs. There are in a sense almost necessary to protect the entire system, so what then happens is the startups; we do black starts from various power plants,” he explained.

Fashola said efforts to start the process were sabotaged last week by  a fire outbreak in Afam which he said affected the control room
He noted that another fire outbreak at  Kainji Dam didnot also help matters, giving assurance that efforts were ongoing to repair the plants.

“As at yesterday (Tuesday), we were back to 2,900MW. So we are building up back again, and very soon, you will experience some stability. These are setbacks on the road to incremental power but we will overcome them,” he assured Nigerians.

Fashola said the council approved the completion of Odogunyan transmission substation in Ikorodu, Lagos, and to provide additional transformer capacity at the substation with 260 MVA transformers and transmission lines of 132KVA.
This, he noted, would complete the works in that area generally known within the power industry as Ayobo West.

The minister said the initial contract awarded in 2009 at about N3.225 billion while a revision of N274.3million  to complete it was approved, adding that the contract has increased from about N3.2billion to N3.5billion.
The minister said: “The contract had been awarded before now but not completed because it was not paid for.

“It was awarded in 2009 and should have been completed in 18 months which would have been sometimes in May 2011 but because of lack of funding, nothing happened.

“That is the approval we got today and of course, the cost has been revised as a result of the economic realities so that this can be completed and put to use and this would also add to the expansion capacity to the grid, just as what we have done in Kaduna and previous approvals.”