FG Signs Deal With Brazilian Company To Build N144b Power Plant In Bayelsa

The Federal Government and Benco Energy
Limited of Brazil yesterday signed a N144
billion Memorandum of Understanding, MoU,
to construct a 700 megawatts power plant in
Nigeria.
The President of Benco Energy Limited,
Brazil, Mr. Rodrigo Badew, said at the MoU
signing ceremony that the plant which will be
gas and vapour fired will be built in Bayelsa
State.
He added that the plant will have a
construction period of three years.
According to him, “it is a 700MW plant
although it can reduce to 688MW because
this depends on location and environmental
conditions. The investment is around $800
to $900m.
“Of course all these will be confirmed as
soon as we have all the necessary
investigations and have them more defined.
The time schedule is supposed to be around
three years to three and half years for the
construction of the project.
“The location is Bayelsa because it is a
terrain which is close to gas supply,
transmission line and a river. So we have all
the right infrastructure that we need there
and this location is perfect for our
investment,” he said.
Badew added that the power plant would
basically consist of two turbines that run on
gas and two others that will run on vapour,
noting,“that is the power module of the plant
that we are going to be implementing”.
The Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo,
said in his address that a couple of years
ago, Electrobras of Brazil and the Nigerian
government signed an MoU which was aimed
at bringing into Nigeria Electrobras to help
the country develop as much as 10,000MW
of power
According to him, “what we are seeing today
is the very first takeoff of the implementation
of that MoU bringing Benco to work with the
Federal Ministry of Power for their plant. We
want to assure Benco that the terms of the
MoU that we have signed today, we will do
our best to implement them.”
The minister also noted that Nigeria now
generates and distributes an average of
4,500MW of power.
He said, “I am very sure that some of you if
not all of you would have noticed that within
the past few weeks we have averaged about
4,500MW of power delivery and it has been
stable.
“And that means that most of you are now
getting better power supply than you have
had in the recent past. Gas is now coming in
and we are expecting even a lot more of gas.
“The transmission facilities are being beefed
up to strengthen and make more reliable and
stable the national grid to be able to wheel
out more power,” he said. [Vanguard]