Uche Cecil Izuora
Electricity consumers within the Aba Ring Fence areas will receive uninterrupted electricity supply after Heirs Energies, the natural gas supplier to the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant in Aba in Abia State, has completed the turn around maintenance (TAM) at its associated gas gathering (AGG) facilities at Agbada near Port Harcourt in Rivers State.
Dr Nonso Okolo, the Managing Director of Geometric Power Ltd (GPAL), an engineer, confirmed the development, saying “Everyone in not just our company but also Aba Power which derives its electricity from the Geometric Power Plant is excited because the non-gas supply in the last few days has adversely affected socioeconomic activity in Aba, the state’s economic live wire”,.
“Heirs Energies has already started to release gas to us, and most parts of the area covered by Aba Power are now receiving light.
‘“Aba Power is clearing all the localized faults on some feeders, meaning that every house or structure in the nine out of Abia’s 17 local government areas in the Aba Ring-fenced areas will begin to have reliable electricity, as was the case before the turnaround maintenance”.
The Aba Ring fence, which had been enjoying constant and quality electricity in the last two years, has in recent weeks been experiencing power shortages due to the aging gas infrastructure managed by Heirs Energies.
According to Dike Ejike, an Abuja-based mechanical engineer and power consultant, the worst appears to be over in the ring-fenced area because of two new developments in Heirs Energies facilities.
The first, said Ejike, is the replacement of an unnamed critical gas pressure-pumping component which was flown in from the United States last month “at a great cost to Heirs Energies because the part is no longer in production. Geometric Power, I understand, offered to assist Heirs Energies bring the part into Nigeria so that there would be no delays, but it said it could donut comfortably on its own”.
The second development, according to the power consultant, “is the TAM at the AGG at Agbada which is recharging the entire system”.
Most of the gas pipelines in the Eastern flank of the country are old, as they were built 50-60 years ago, hence the intermittent gas shortages to power plants and industrial projects in the area in recent times, noted Chike Madueke, a chemical engineer and chairman of the historic Enugu State government-owned Nigergas Company in Emene, Enugu, and a private gas company, also in Enugu State, who has been campaigning for gas pipeline extension to the Southeast which he describes as having the largest natural gas deposits in West Africa.
Engr Madueke revealed that the aged gas pipeline crisis in Aba was worsened in the last seven years by a lack of investment by the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC), operator of the Oil Mining Licence (OML) 17 in Owaza, Ukwa West LGA because of a dispute with the Federal Government.
He stated that when the President Muhammad Buhari administration refused to renew the operating licence to the SDPC, the company took the government to court.
The case, he said, “dragged on from the Federal High Court through the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court.
“The company made no investment in the AGG during these long years for fear of losing, and eventually it lost the case”.
Both Dike and Madueke lauded Heirs Energies for not just the huge investment it has made in rehabilitating the gas pipelines in the Eastern flank but also in acquiring world-class technology and knowledge.
“Heirs Energies represents what indigenous oil and gas firms can do when challenged and given the opportunity to demonstrate their capabilities”, Dike declared.
“Nigerians who criticize Heirs Energies for the occasional hiccups in gas supply to the Geometric Power Plant in Aba resulting in electricity outages don’t get their facts right, even though we understand their grievances.
“Heirs Energies has been grappling with paralysing legacy issues admirably, making us confident that Heirs Energies engineers have steered the ship out of the worst storm”.