- As FG seeks $5.2bn from World Bank for electricity
- And Benin, Niger pay N48.84bn to Nigeria for power
The Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) is willing to build a 150,000 barrels per day refinery in either Port Harcourt or Brass worth 15 billion US dollars, the Minister of State, Petroleum, Dr Ibe Kachikwu on Tuesday, disclosed.
Kachikwu indicated this while briefing State House Correspondents on the deal, after a meeting with the Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo with petroleum ministry, NAOC and NNPC officials at the Presidential Villa.
Agip, the Minister remarked, would also build a power plant, in addition to repairing the existing refinery in Port Harcourt, so as to boost local production of petroleum products.
“The Acting President chaired two meetings this morning. The first was with the ministry of Petroleum, NNPC and Agip Oil Company.
“In the first meeting, we dealt largely with issues relating to Agip’s investment on Zabazaba Field and then their cooperation with us in terms of repairs of the Port Harcourt refinery where they are working with Oando and a few other people.
“And thirdly and more importantly, we reviewed, following my meeting with Agip during the OTC (over the counter) last week with their Chief Executive Officer worldwide.
“We reached an agreement that Agip would build a brand new refinery of 150,000 barrels capacity, which will be located either in Port Harcourt (Rivers) or in Brass (Bayelsa).
“And so, today they reconfirmed that and they are preparing an MOU along those lines.
“The effect of that new refinery goes back to our insistence that oil companies who work in this country would need to begin to migrate away from just exporting crude and begin to look at how to refine those crude and help our local capacity to be able to meet our consumption’’, the Minister explained, noting that the new refinery, along with the work Agip is to do at the old refinery in Port Harcourt, would increase the country’s momentum in localising the capacity to produce every refined product.
He added that it would enable the country “to meet the timeline for 2019 that we have been targeting conceptually”.
“So, it is very welcome, deliberative, very successful meeting and we are looking forward to work with Agip going forward in working out the modalities and quickening the process to execute this major project.
“I would also be calling on other multinationals who occupy the same space to see what they can do both in the areas of power”, Kachikwu observed further, saying Agip was doing a second power plant that should be on stream by 2019 or 2020. The objective, he said, was to ensure that the oil majors did not just take the crude and all the investments but that they would also see what they could do in terms of creating other related industrial growth paths.
“Total investment from Agip involved in both the Zabazaba field, the power plant and the new refinery is in excess of $15 billion. That is major push in terms of our search for investment,’’ the minister explained, highlighting that Agip’s investment would however not make the company take over the country’s refineries.
“They (Agip) are going to build their own refinery; it is not different from Dangote building a refinery.
“And if our own will pack up because of what they are doing then we must be doing something wrong.
“So, if they are going to bring best practices to the field we need to pursue those best practices because ultimately we must begin to look at an export model,’’ he added.
Kachikwu said that the administration was looking at how to position refineries in the country to supply the African market.
“So, market protectionism is not going to be the answer. It is getting our own system up in excellent levels of performance to be able to march international standards.’’
In the meantime, the Federal Government is seeking $5.2bn from the World Bank to expand electricity generation and help the economy recover from its first contraction in 25 years.
The bank’s private-sector lending arm, the International Finance Corporation, may invest about $1.3bn in power projects and electricity distribution companies in the country, according to a report by Bloomberg.
The World Bank’s political-risk insurer, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, could provide equity and debt of $1.4bn for gas and solar power programmes, according to the Minister Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola.
That’s in addition to loans of $2.5bn that Nigeria is seeking from the lender to help improve the distribution of power, expand transmission capacity and increase access to electricity in rural areas, Fashola, said.
“Disbursements with the World Bank are being worked out to start from around June or July this year,” Fashola said in an interview with Bloomberg on May 4.
Nigeria is asking the lender to bring forward the timetables “because next year we want to see results,” he added.
Africa’s most populous nation produces about 4,000 megawatts of power compared with an average peak generation of about 35,000 megawatts in South Africa, with a population that’s less than a third of the size of Nigeria’s 180 million people.
Power generation and distribution companies are facing cash flow difficulties, partly because of foreign exchange losses, outages due to technical faults and the theft of electricity by some users, according to Fashola.
In 2016, power distributors paid only 27 per cent of the N331bn that the generating companies invoiced, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
In addition, the Republics of Benin and Niger have paid a total of $159,773,116.61 (N48.84bn at the official exchange rate of N305.7 to a dollar) as electricity charges to the Nigeria Bulk Electricity Trading Plc, the Federal Government has said.
It also stated that both countries had a combined balance of $92,315,986.20 (N28.22bn) to pay to the NBET, adding that the payments made were remitted to the power generation companies and service providers in Nigeria.
The Ministry of Power, Works and Housing disclosed this in the communique issued at the end of the 15th monthly meeting of the minister, Babatunde Fashola, with operators of the power sector in Jos, Plateau State.
The ministry stated that the two African countries made the payments through their power companies, NIGELEC of the Republic of Niger and Community Electric du Benin of the Republic of Benin.
The communique read in part, “The NBET reported on international customer payments, stating that NIGELEC and CEB had made payments for power of $159,773, 116.61, with a combined balance still outstanding of $92,315,986.20.
“The payments have been duly remitted to the generating companies and service providers who had provided the generation and transmission services.”
This is coming as the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission said it was targeting to reduce the number of days needed to connect new buildings with electricity.
According to the communique, the power ministry said, “NERC announced its intention to reduce the number of days required to access electricity connections in new buildings from an estimated 198 to 30 days through a regulatory order to be released shortly.”
It further stated that the Niger Delta Power Holding Company announced the completion of host community connection projects in Magboro, Ogun State, which is currently undergoing testing by the Ibadan Electricity Distribution Company.
“The NDPHC also reported progress on community connections in Egbema, Okija, Oronta, Ihiala and Nnewi, which are still work in progress,” it added.
The ministry noted that the power Market Operator reported payment performance for service provision, with the Eko Electricity Distribution Company posting the best performance at 89 per cent, while the Kaduna Disco had the worst at 13 per cent.
Additional report from Punch