The country’s power
transmission capacity was inadequate, adding that this was the major reason for
the poor supply of electricity nationwide.
The Nigerian National
Petroleum Corporation on Wednesday said its ongoing reform was geared towards
transforming it from an oil and gas company into an integrated energy outfit
with interest in power generation and transmission.
The Group Managing
Director, NNPC, Dr Maikanti Baru, stated this at the 53rd International
Conference and Exhibition of the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society in
Abuja.
He said the corporation had
identified opportunities in the power sector and was ready to take advantage of
them to transform from being a gas supplier to the power sector into a major
player in the industry.
In a statement by the Group
General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, the NNPC boss
stated that the corporation was already working on a project to generate four
megawatts of electricity, while also exploring the possibility of investing in
the transmission segment of the power sector.
Baru explained that the
corporation’s decision to diversify into the power sector was hinged on the
need to bridge the huge energy gap in the Nigerian market.
He said that contrary to
the impression that the poor power situation was caused by inadequate gas
supply, the real problem was insufficient transmission capacity.
The GMD said there was
enough gas to generate 8,000MW of electricity but the transmission grid could
not support such quantum of power without complications.
Baru also defended the
Federal Government’s plan to transform illegal refineries in the Niger Delta
into legal entities for proper integration of the youth in the region.
He argued that getting the
youth to form consortia to set up 1,000 barrels per day modular refineries
would get them off criminality and create jobs.
In the upstream sub-sector,
he said his goal was to accelerate frontier exploration and grow the crude oil
reserve to 40 billion barrels from the current 37 billion.
In another development, the
corporation has raised the alarm about the existence of some dubious syndicates
who specialise in extorting money from unsuspecting people under the pretext of
a purported recruitment exercise and promise of phantom job placements in the
oil firm.
According to Ughamadu, the
NNPC currently does not conduct any recruitment exercise and the corporation
will advertise vacant positions whenever it has need to embark on a
recruitment.
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