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A gas-fired power station with the potential to supply 550 megawatts of electricity is on the cards for Cross River State. The South Korean firm, Kingline Integrated Power Development Limited, plans to build a power generating facility in the southern state, which upon completion, could go some way to reducing the immense energy supply gap the nation currently struggles to fill.

Kingline’s CEO, Mr. Sean Kim, said yesterday that the company had already determined that the proposed sites for the project met its requirements. The firm would be applying for a generation license, and carrying out an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) in the next stage of the project execution process, Kim is reported to have said, during a visit to the Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade.

Details given by the South Korean firm’s boss suggests that it would be investing about $10 million in the initial stage of the plant’s development. A total of $560 million should be invested in the project, with funding coming from various sources including the World Bank. Of this amount, about $150 million worth of equity will be provided by Kingline.

Apart from supplying a significant amount of electricity, the plant could help create about 1,000 jobs once it becomes operational. Kim promised that locals would benefit from this, as the local content act would be considered in the hiring process. Tax revenues and dividend payments from the project could also accrue to the state.

The Cross River State Governor, Senator Ben Ayade, said that the investment came at the right time; he described Calabar, the state capital, as “the epicenter of gas gathering around the southern flank in the gas master plan”, and assured that Kingline’s plan to locate a gas-fired turbine in the state was “the right decision”, because the reconstituted gas to power tariff would make it easy for the company to buy the gas its turbine would need to generate power.


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This article was first published on 31st October 2016

ikenna-nwachukwu

Ikenna Nwachukwu holds a bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He loves to look at the world through multiple lenses- economic, political, religious and philosophical- and to write about what he observes in a witty, yet reflective style.


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