F.G to Invest N1.3 Trillion in Gas to Develop Electricity Supply

  The Nigerian government has revealed that it will invest $8 billion (N1.3 trillion) in the development of the nation’s local gas potential to boost electricity supply across the country. This was made known by Vice President Namadi Sambo, when he received the management of Genesis Electricity (GE) Consortium led by Nigerian business man, Arthur Eze, in the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Mr. Sambo said the amount would be invested by government on a Public Private Partnership basis to fast track the energy sector so as to ensure availability of gas to power plants nationwide. “Government, in its efforts to improve power generation, has planned to invest the sum of $8 billion on a Public Private Partnership basis to develop local gas potentials.” “There is a move to fast track the system to ensure availability of gas to its plants by involving owners of the new plants and international oil companies to get involved in gas infrastructure,’’ the News Agency of Nigeria quoted him. According to the former kaduna state governor, government plans to inject an additional $3.7 billion to upgrade and expand the transmission grid to wheel up to 20,000 megawatts of electricity. The vice president also narrated the efforts of government on the Zungeru and Mambila hydropower projects which were expected to generate 700mw and 3,050 mw, respectively. He said the pilot scheme of the wind, solar and coal power projects, would provide about 10mw, while a Chinese company had proposed to generate 1000mw in Enugu in an effort to ensure mixed generation capacity. Mr. Sambo, therefore, assured the Genesis Electricity of lots of activities and opportunities in Nigeria’s power sector noting that G.E’s investments in power plants would support the sector in Calabar by injecting $300 million into the financial sector and their plans to support training of Nigerians to strengthen the power sector, NAN reported. Mr. Eze pledged to extend frontiers of their investments to Kaduna and other refineries. Present at the meeting were the Chairman, engro corp, Hassan Dawood; President and CEO of engro corp, Ali Ansari; and Darry Wilson, the Vice President of GE.