[size=14pt]Akwa Ibom Power Plant taking the lead in Nigeria[/size]

Managing Director of the Akwa Ibom Power Plant, Dr. Victor Udoh was like the lizard that jumped from the high Iroko tree and beat his chest in adulation as the state celebrated 100 days of constant power supply recently. The CEO spoke with NDOMA RICHARD

Congratulations, you just celebrated 100 days without forced outage, what does this mean to you?

Thank you very much. First, let me thank His Excellency,Mr. udom Emmanuel, the leader of our state, the superior performer as we call him, for giving us the opportunity, as AkwaIbom people, to turn this place around.

What we are celebrating today is about a hundred and eight (108) days of what we call continuous operation without forced outage. Every machine sometimes has to be taken down to be maintained, if you count out planned maintenance, we’ve run this plant for a hundred and something days without any mistake from our operators or failure on any part.

This is what we call “forced outage”. That’s something we felt like we should celebrate among ourselves, as you can see, the staff and employees are very excited about it. It’s a common measure or metric for plant availability because if you are going to run a good power plant, you will have to make sure it is always available by minimizing forced outages. This is a very good accomplishment for us. It is something that has never happened before.

A year ago, the plant hardly ran for some days or even a week without outage. Therefore, to have it running for more than 100 days without forced outage is something we are very grateful to God for.

We are very grateful to His Excellency, the Executive Governor, the leaders of the State, the community, the paramount ruler, clan heads, everybody that is a stakeholder, even the people in Abuja and so on.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to make this happen. Hopefully, if all the power plants in the country can do the same run for many days without outages, then the entire country will move towards what everybody has been dreaming of which is steady power supply.

When you have feats like this, there must be lots of underlined things behind that brought this to the fore, what were the things that you did that enabled this to happen?

When His Excellency was the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), he actually collaborated with the former Governor now Senate Minority Leader, Chief Godswill Akpabio, he encouraged him and persuaded him to send me to Ibom Power Company, to be the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, even though in an acting capacity.

There were three things that he expected me to do; one was to make sure the plant is stabilized because it was always down due to one problem or the other.The transmission lines were not operating at full capacity, along with so many other problems. When I came in, the first thing I did was to make sure the employees are well taken care of because they were owed. Good enough, they were mostly AkwaIbomites. I came in and made sure that those debts were paid.

I boosted their morale, made them happy; made them feel good. Before then, people were coming from other power plants to recruit our staff. So we made sure that the employees were happy. Thereafter, we made sure that the immediate technical and commercial activities that needed to be done in the plant were implemented so that we can minimize forced outages.

The second thing that His Excellency, then SSG, expected me to do was to build capacity because he is very strong in capacity building. What we’ve done is to make sure that we encourage people that would have been pulled by other power plants to stay with us by giving them reasonable incentives.

We also instituted an apprenticeship and internship program. The third thing His Excellency asked me to do was to implement good Corporate Governance. To make sure that the company is run as a corporation, not as a parastatal, ministry, or a project. We implemented good corporate governance. We’re not a parastatal and we are not a ministry; we are running as a business.

We set clear performance goals. We developed a business plan and got the employees to understand the goals. We track these metrics on a monthly basis. We share with the employees, so we made the employees part of it. We also made investments in some critical technologies, like what we call the “dead bus” technology.

It is very important because before now, whenever the national grid was down, we were down for as long as the grid is down. When we put the “dead bus” even when the national grid is down, our plant still runs and we can feed the entire Akwa Ibom State sometimes even up to Calabar, Cross River State, when the rest of the national grid is down.

These are some of the things we’ve done since we came in here. When I came in, we used to depend on foreigners as technical advisers, yet the problems persisted. Today, I am very proud to tell Nigerians that Akwa Ibom people are running this plant 100 per cent.

The money we were spending to bring the so called “experts” is now being saved to do other things. We are very proud of what is happening. The result speaks for itself. With all the expenditure that we were making and all the people we were bringing in, the plant hadn’t worked for a week, two weeks or even a month without forced outage. Now we are talking about 100 days and still counting, it is something we are very proud of.

From what you’ve said, it looks like the key investments you made were non-technical, is that correct?

No, no, they were both technical and non-technical. You have to make the people happy first. You can have the best machine but if it is not properly operated by people, it’s not going to give you the best result. For me, making the people operating the plant happy is very, very key.

Secondly, we had to invest money in new technologies, like I said, the “dead bus” technology, we had to rehabilitate the “black start” generator. At a point, we had to import some filters which is something the previous manager should have planned. These kind of spare parts need to be planned for ahead.

We had to import some of the spare parts from the US by air to reduce downtime. We invested in the people, which is capacity building, and the technical aspect, so it’s a good balance of both.

So, at this time, how many of your turbines are up and what capacity are you generating right now?

Well, the plant was licensed for 191MW. There are three units. The biggest one, which is rated at 115MW, is running now. When Port Harcourt Electricity Company (PHEDC) takes load, we can do between 110MW and 113MW. One of the remaining two units has never been commissioned. By God’s grace, in the next two months or less, we are going to commission it (unit 2) and get it running.

Once that is done, our total capacity will be 150MW. By God’s grace, when more money begins to come in, we will rehabilitate unit 1. By the time we finish with units 1 & 2, we will be operating at 191MW full installed capacity. To answer your question specifically, only one unit is running now and that one unit is more than 50% of our installed capacity.

What’s the timing for the completion for the three units?

Well, it is actually driven by finances. As I said, in the next two months or less, we should be able to get unit 2 running. When that is running we should be able to make more money that can get unit 1 also running. If we have the money, it is something that we can do in the next six months. It is a matter of money. I have personally informed the Government that this thing has to survive by itself.

Therefore, I am not going to the government to ask for money. I’m expecting to use our revenue from what we produce to solve the problem. Unfortunately, we are not being paid for all that we generate. If we were being paid, I can plan a little bit better. I will be able to tell you that in six months or less;I will give you a specific time. There are so many constraints but as money comes in, we try to use it in making sure we restore the full 191MW capacity.

Everybody complains that you are generating power, you are selling power to the national grid but you are getting less than what should be paid for the power, what is the situation with the power sector?

Well, it is the market, it is the industry. All the CEOs of the generation, distribution and transmission companies meet once a month. I just returned from Abuja where we had a meeting. There are some market deficiencies, for instance tariff is an issue.

The Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is encouraging the distribution companies to set prudent tariffs. It is the distribution companies that interface with the consumers. Therefore, they should introduce cost reflective tariffs.

Once the tariff is right and the distribution companies collect the revenue they will be able to pay us (generation companies). Their argument is that even when they sell the electricity to consumers, they are not able to collect the revenue.

But how can you collect revenue when you don’t have a cash register? When you go to a store in advanced countries to buy something they give a receipt and you pay the amount on the receipt. Most people don’t have meters, so the distribution companies use estimated billing which is sometimes outrageous. People have complained, so as long as people are not paying, they are not collecting and they are unable to pay us.

We sell our output to NBET which is a Federal Government institution that signed contracts with power generating companies. NBET is supposed to pay us but they won’t have the money unless the distribution companies collect revenue from the consumers. That’s the problem we’re having right now. The distribution companies, including the one that is serving us here in Akwa Ibom State, have decided not to allow the people get the power.

When people don’t get the power, there’s no way that they are going to pay. If you don’t consume, you don’t pay, and that’s a big problem. When we produce, if you can’t deliver it in Akwa Ibom, it may not really matter who gets the power as long as we get our money. But from a patriotic Akwa Ibom perspective, you want most of the power you generate here to be consumed here.

For the 100 days that we have been running without forced outage, I would have wanted that to be reflected in a typical customer in Akwa Ibom having steady power supply for 100 days. But it would eventually happen with the vision His Excellency, the Executive Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel.

We have the basic building blocks – we have gas, we have a functional generating plant, we have transmission capacity for 191MW. It is just for the distribution company to take the load and collect the revenue and that is the problem we have in Akwa Ibom today.

The issue again has been that, I don’t know if this has been corrected but the bulk trader has been paying you less than it ought to, so in terms of the ratio, what are they owing you right now?

In fairness to NBET, even though they were capitalized by the World Bank and the Federal Government to some extent, they cannot give what they don’t have. What they do is they expect the distribution company to pay. For instance if the distribution company delivers 100MW and only collect 50MWworth or revenue, that is what NBET will pay to the generating companies. This varies from one month to another.

Is there any hope that this money will be paid or is the money lost until the system stabilizes?

It’s a difficult challenge. If you watch the news and you are aware at some point, the Central Bank had to intervene. Key players in components of the power value chain (gas, generation and distribution) were owed. There was no way that money would have been paid by collecting revenue from the customers. That’s why CBN intervened and made some money available for those debts to be paid off. It takes government intervention like that to pay some of the debts.

There were so many issues such as people who need electricity but cannot afford to pay. Sometimes, Government has to step in and subsidize. There was some subsidy promised to distribution companies that did not materialize. It’s very complicated but as an industry, we are working together because Nigerians cannot continue without steady power supply. However, electricity is not free, people borrowed money, for instance Akwa Ibom State Government borrowed money to build Ibom Power Plant.

We have to pay this money back. People that invested in distribution companies borrowed money and they have to pay the money back. If they don’t get this money back, it becomes a very big liquidity problem.

That’s why CBN stepped in to reduce the liquidity problem. Once the liquidity problem is solved and there is enough money flowing, then we will see significant improvements. The State and Federal Government are taking the issue of liquidity serious and once it’s cleaned up, we would see better results.

So how much has been paid?

It depends on who you are. What I will say as the MD of Ibom power will differ from what the market operator and NBET will say. Therefore, throwing outnumbers is not really the best thing. We are working to reconcile and make sure we agree, and maybe sometimes compromise.

One thing must be very clear, people saw it on TV, it was not hidden we were paid N1.7billion debt that was owed us. That’s how we were able to implement some of the projects that are currently ongoing at the plant.

How did you deal with the gas issue?

Most people don’t know that gas is not a problem in Akwa Ibom State. The previous administration did something thatI believe the Federal Government should have done. When gas was selling at 40 cents, former Akwa Ibom State Governor, now distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio paid for gas at $2. Today, the value of that gas is about $3.30.That encouraged the private sector companies to invest. Gas is not an issue in Akwa Ibom State even though other parts of the country have challenges with gas. Therefore, when you hear people talk about “uncommon performer” or “superior performer” as the new administration is branded, it is because people have foresight. Our leaders have foresight. Godswill Akpabio had the foresight to make sure there was gas supply. Before then we depended on Nigeria Gas Company (NGC)based on what we called “best endeavor”. This means if they have gas, they give us, if they don’t supply gas, our plant will not operate.

But we now have a gas supply contract that is called “take or pay” which is also a challenge. It means whether we use the gas or not, we have to pay for it. However, thank God we have gas. We have a pipeline and a gas processing plant that is supplying gas to us here in Ibom power. We are working on the challenges in the commercial aspect in collaboration with Seven Energy to reach a good mutually agreeable framework going forward.

Is it so threatening that they can shut down the plant?

I won’t say they will do that. They’ve spoken to us, they’ve spoken to His Excellency and discussions are ongoing. There are some reconciliations but I don’t think it will come to the point of them shutting down the plant. If we owe, they too owe because they had to borrow money to do what they are doing.

This is the reason we are pleading with the Federal Government and other stakeholders to understand our struggle and help wherever they can. We want to run this business as a profitable private sector business not depending on subvention.

This is the reason people have to pay their bills. That’s why the distribution companies have to run their systems right so that people consume electricity and pay. Once we solve the commercial and technical issues, I believe things will get better.

But it is said that even at your full capacity, until you get into Phase 2 which adds about 500MW, Ibom Power is not really viable?

No, that’s not true, that’s not true at all. If it’s true, we wouldn’t be having the number of investors who are showing interest. We have so many people who want to invest; companies from Brazil, USA and Europe.

The issue of viability is not a big deal as far as I am concerned. The good news is that most of the investments were already made by the State Government. If we were trying to build a new infrastructure and we needed to go raise money in commercial banks or investment banks then that will be an issue. But this is an asset that is already existing.

It needed to be stabilized and today we have stabilized it. If we were being paid what we produce, we would have started paying dividend to the Government. Phase 2 is a big strategic asset, it’s a big opportunity because we have gas, we have a 330kV transmission investment that the Federal Government is constructing near our phase 2 site. We are now clearing the site.

Therefore, Phase 2 is a big opportunity. Most investors are very happy and interested. When you combine what we’ve done in phase 1 and phase 2, it becomes a very, very attractive asset for people that want to invest. The only issues are around the market structure, the tariff, the collection, and the payment, once that is done, we will have a steady income flow for the investor.

Does your generating license cover the anticipated Phase 2?

No, it doesn’t. We just received a preliminary approval from NERC. Within the next two months or less, we should be able to get the license for Phase 2. We’ve submitted all the documents required to expand the license from 191MW to 685MW. We have published “no objection” advertisement and are awaiting a final approval.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/akwa-ibom-power-plant-taking-the-lead-in-nigeria/

ok

Meaningless when it cannot be used where it is most needed. No light in the capital for more than a week.
This is just like someone saying that his generator has ran for a month without stopping, how does that concern the neighbor next door

More than one hundred and something scratches head

nice one

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meanwhile Chelsea fans this is good news for you

speedyGonzales:
[size=14pt]Akwa Ibom Power Plant taking the lead in Nigeria[/size]

Managing Director of the Akwa Ibom Power Plant, Dr. Victor Udoh was like the lizard that jumped from the high Iroko tree and beat his chest in adulation as the state celebrated 100 days of constant power supply recently. The CEO spoke with NDOMA RICHARD

Congratulations, you just celebrated 100 days without forced outage, what does this mean to you?

Thank you very much. First, let me thank His Excellency,Mr. udom Emmanuel, the leader of our state, the superior performer as we call him, for giving us the opportunity, as AkwaIbom people, to turn this place around.

What we are celebrating today is about a hundred and eight (108) days of what we call continuous operation without forced outage. Every machine sometimes has to be taken down to be maintained, if you count out planned maintenance, we’ve run this plant for a hundred and something days without any mistake from our operators or failure on any part.

This is what we call “forced outage”. That’s something we felt like we should celebrate among ourselves, as you can see, the staff and employees are very excited about it. It’s a common measure or metric for plant availability because if you are going to run a good power plant, you will have to make sure it is always available by minimizing forced outages. This is a very good accomplishment for us. It is something that has never happened before.

A year ago, the plant hardly ran for some days or even a week without outage. Therefore, to have it running for more than 100 days without forced outage is something we are very grateful to God for.

We are very grateful to His Excellency, the Executive Governor, the leaders of the State, the community, the paramount ruler, clan heads, everybody that is a stakeholder, even the people in Abuja and so on.

We are very grateful for the opportunity to make this happen. Hopefully, if all the power plants in the country can do the same run for many days without outages, then the entire country will move towards what everybody has been dreaming of which is steady power supply.

When you have feats like this, there must be lots of underlined things behind that brought this to the fore, what were the things that you did that enabled this to happen?

When His Excellency was the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), he actually collaborated with the former Governor now Senate Minority Leader, Chief Godswill Akpabio, he encouraged him and persuaded him to send me to Ibom Power Company, to be the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, even though in an acting capacity.

There were three things that he expected me to do; one was to make sure the plant is stabilized because it was always down due to one problem or the other.The transmission lines were not operating at full capacity, along with so many other problems. When I came in, the first thing I did was to make sure the employees are well taken care of because they were owed. Good enough, they were mostly AkwaIbomites. I came in and made sure that those debts were paid.

I boosted their morale, made them happy; made them feel good. Before then, people were coming from other power plants to recruit our staff. So we made sure that the employees were happy. Thereafter, we made sure that the immediate technical and commercial activities that needed to be done in the plant were implemented so that we can minimize forced outages.

The second thing that His Excellency, then SSG, expected me to do was to build capacity because he is very strong in capacity building. What we’ve done is to make sure that we encourage people that would have been pulled by other power plants to stay with us by giving them reasonable incentives.

We also instituted an apprenticeship and internship program. The third thing His Excellency asked me to do was to implement good Corporate Governance. To make sure that the company is run as a corporation, not as a parastatal, ministry, or a project. We implemented good corporate governance. We’re not a parastatal and we are not a ministry; we are running as a business.

We set clear performance goals. We developed a business plan and got the employees to understand the goals. We track these metrics on a monthly basis. We share with the employees, so we made the employees part of it. We also made investments in some critical technologies, like what we call the “dead bus” technology.

It is very important because before now, whenever the national grid was down, we were down for as long as the grid is down. When we put the “dead bus” even when the national grid is down, our plant still runs and we can feed the entire Akwa Ibom State sometimes even up to Calabar, Cross River State, when the rest of the national grid is down.

These are some of the things we’ve done since we came in here. When I came in, we used to depend on foreigners as technical advisers, yet the problems persisted. Today, I am very proud to tell Nigerians that Akwa Ibom people are running this plant 100 per cent.

The money we were spending to bring the so called “experts” is now being saved to do other things. We are very proud of what is happening. The result speaks for itself. With all the expenditure that we were making and all the people we were bringing in, the plant hadn’t worked for a week, two weeks or even a month without forced outage. Now we are talking about 100 days and still counting, it is something we are very proud of.

From what you’ve said, it looks like the key investments you made were non-technical, is that correct?

No, no, they were both technical and non-technical. You have to make the people happy first. You can have the best machine but if it is not properly operated by people, it’s not going to give you the best result. For me, making the people operating the plant happy is very, very key.

Secondly, we had to invest money in new technologies, like I said, the “dead bus” technology, we had to rehabilitate the “black start” generator. At a point, we had to import some filters which is something the previous manager should have planned. These kind of spare parts need to be planned for ahead.

We had to import some of the spare parts from the US by air to reduce downtime. We invested in the people, which is capacity building, and the technical aspect, so it’s a good balance of both.

So, at this time, how many of your turbines are up and what capacity are you generating right now?

Well, the plant was licensed for 191MW. There are three units. The biggest one, which is rated at 115MW, is running now. When Port Harcourt Electricity Company (PHEDC) takes load, we can do between 110MW and 113MW. One of the remaining two units has never been commissioned. By God’s grace, in the next two months or less, we are going to commission it (unit 2) and get it running.

Once that is done, our total capacity will be 150MW. By God’s grace, when more money begins to come in, we will rehabilitate unit 1. By the time we finish with units 1 & 2, we will be operating at 191MW full installed capacity. To answer your question specifically, only one unit is running now and that one unit is more than 50% of our installed capacity.

What’s the timing for the completion for the three units?

Well, it is actually driven by finances. As I said, in the next two months or less, we should be able to get unit 2 running. When that is running we should be able to make more money that can get unit 1 also running. If we have the money, it is something that we can do in the next six months. It is a matter of money. I have personally informed the Government that this thing has to survive by itself.

Therefore, I am not going to the government to ask for money. I’m expecting to use our revenue from what we produce to solve the problem. Unfortunately, we are not being paid for all that we generate. If we were being paid, I can plan a little bit better. I will be able to tell you that in six months or less;I will give you a specific time. There are so many constraints but as money comes in, we try to use it in making sure we restore the full 191MW capacity.

Everybody complains that you are generating power, you are selling power to the national grid but you are getting less than what should be paid for the power, what is the situation with the power sector?

Well, it is the market, it is the industry. All the CEOs of the generation, distribution and transmission companies meet once a month. I just returned from Abuja where we had a meeting. There are some market deficiencies, for instance tariff is an issue.

The Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is encouraging the distribution companies to set prudent tariffs. It is the distribution companies that interface with the consumers. Therefore, they should introduce cost reflective tariffs.

Once the tariff is right and the distribution companies collect the revenue they will be able to pay us (generation companies). Their argument is that even when they sell the electricity to consumers, they are not able to collect the revenue.

But how can you collect revenue when you don’t have a cash register? When you go to a store in advanced countries to buy something they give a receipt and you pay the amount on the receipt. Most people don’t have meters, so the distribution companies use estimated billing which is sometimes outrageous. People have complained, so as long as people are not paying, they are not collecting and they are unable to pay us.

We sell our output to NBET which is a Federal Government institution that signed contracts with power generating companies. NBET is supposed to pay us but they won’t have the money unless the distribution companies collect revenue from the consumers. That’s the problem we’re having right now. The distribution companies, including the one that is serving us here in Akwa Ibom State, have decided not to allow the people get the power.

When people don’t get the power, there’s no way that they are going to pay. If you don’t consume, you don’t pay, and that’s a big problem. When we produce, if you can’t deliver it in Akwa Ibom, it may not really matter who gets the power as long as we get our money. But from a patriotic Akwa Ibom perspective, you want most of the power you generate here to be consumed here.

For the 100 days that we have been running without forced outage, I would have wanted that to be reflected in a typical customer in Akwa Ibom having steady power supply for 100 days. But it would eventually happen with the vision His Excellency, the Executive Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel.

We have the basic building blocks – we have gas, we have a functional generating plant, we have transmission capacity for 191MW. It is just for the distribution company to take the load and collect the revenue and that is the problem we have in Akwa Ibom today.

The issue again has been that, I don’t know if this has been corrected but the bulk trader has been paying you less than it ought to, so in terms of the ratio, what are they owing you right now?

In fairness to NBET, even though they were capitalized by the World Bank and the Federal Government to some extent, they cannot give what they don’t have. What they do is they expect the distribution company to pay. For instance if the distribution company delivers 100MW and only collect 50MWworth or revenue, that is what NBET will pay to the generating companies. This varies from one month to another.

Is there any hope that this money will be paid or is the money lost until the system stabilizes?

It’s a difficult challenge. If you watch the news and you are aware at some point, the Central Bank had to intervene. Key players in components of the power value chain (gas, generation and distribution) were owed. There was no way that money would have been paid by collecting revenue from the customers. That’s why CBN intervened and made some money available for those debts to be paid off. It takes government intervention like that to pay some of the debts.

There were so many issues such as people who need electricity but cannot afford to pay. Sometimes, Government has to step in and subsidize. There was some subsidy promised to distribution companies that did not materialize. It’s very complicated but as an industry, we are working together because Nigerians cannot continue without steady power supply. However, electricity is not free, people borrowed money, for instance Akwa Ibom State Government borrowed money to build Ibom Power Plant.

We have to pay this money back. People that invested in distribution companies borrowed money and they have to pay the money back. If they don’t get this money back, it becomes a very big liquidity problem.

That’s why CBN stepped in to reduce the liquidity problem. Once the liquidity problem is solved and there is enough money flowing, then we will see significant improvements. The State and Federal Government are taking the issue of liquidity serious and once it’s cleaned up, we would see better results.

So how much has been paid?

It depends on who you are. What I will say as the MD of Ibom power will differ from what the market operator and NBET will say. Therefore, throwing outnumbers is not really the best thing. We are working to reconcile and make sure we agree, and maybe sometimes compromise.

One thing must be very clear, people saw it on TV, it was not hidden we were paid N1.7billion debt that was owed us. That’s how we were able to implement some of the projects that are currently ongoing at the plant.

How did you deal with the gas issue?

Most people don’t know that gas is not a problem in Akwa Ibom State. The previous administration did something thatI believe the Federal Government should have done. When gas was selling at 40 cents, former Akwa Ibom State Governor, now distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio paid for gas at $2. Today, the value of that gas is about $3.30.That encouraged the private sector companies to invest. Gas is not an issue in Akwa Ibom State even though other parts of the country have challenges with gas. Therefore, when you hear people talk about “uncommon performer” or “superior performer” as the new administration is branded, it is because people have foresight. Our leaders have foresight. Godswill Akpabio had the foresight to make sure there was gas supply. Before then we depended on Nigeria Gas Company (NGC)based on what we called “best endeavor”. This means if they have gas, they give us, if they don’t supply gas, our plant will not operate.

But we now have a gas supply contract that is called “take or pay” which is also a challenge. It means whether we use the gas or not, we have to pay for it. However, thank God we have gas. We have a pipeline and a gas processing plant that is supplying gas to us here in Ibom power. We are working on the challenges in the commercial aspect in collaboration with Seven Energy to reach a good mutually agreeable framework going forward.

Is it so threatening that they can shut down the plant?

I won’t say they will do that. They’ve spoken to us, they’ve spoken to His Excellency and discussions are ongoing. There are some reconciliations but I don’t think it will come to the point of them shutting down the plant. If we owe, they too owe because they had to borrow money to do what they are doing.

This is the reason we are pleading with the Federal Government and other stakeholders to understand our struggle and help wherever they can. We want to run this business as a profitable private sector business not depending on subvention.

This is the reason people have to pay their bills. That’s why the distribution companies have to run their systems right so that people consume electricity and pay. Once we solve the commercial and technical issues, I believe things will get better.

But it is said that even at your full capacity, until you get into Phase 2 which adds about 500MW, Ibom Power is not really viable?

No, that’s not true, that’s not true at all. If it’s true, we wouldn’t be having the number of investors who are showing interest. We have so many people who want to invest; companies from Brazil, USA and Europe.

The issue of viability is not a big deal as far as I am concerned. The good news is that most of the investments were already made by the State Government. If we were trying to build a new infrastructure and we needed to go raise money in commercial banks or investment banks then that will be an issue. But this is an asset that is already existing.

It needed to be stabilized and today we have stabilized it. If we were being paid what we produce, we would have started paying dividend to the Government. Phase 2 is a big strategic asset, it’s a big opportunity because we have gas, we have a 330kV transmission investment that the Federal Government is constructing near our phase 2 site. We are now clearing the site.

Therefore, Phase 2 is a big opportunity. Most investors are very happy and interested. When you combine what we’ve done in phase 1 and phase 2, it becomes a very, very attractive asset for people that want to invest. The only issues are around the market structure, the tariff, the collection, and the payment, once that is done, we will have a steady income flow for the investor.

Does your generating license cover the anticipated Phase 2?

No, it doesn’t. We just received a preliminary approval from NERC. Within the next two months or less, we should be able to get the license for Phase 2. We’ve submitted all the documents required to expand the license from 191MW to 685MW. We have published “no objection” advertisement and are awaiting a final approval.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/new/akwa-ibom-power-plant-taking-the-lead-in-nigeria/

you just copy boring articles all the time and then attack pro afro people like me. you are a subhuman l0ser