Government unfolds gas supply emergency plan

To guarantee adequate supply of gas to power plants across the country and ensure the supply of electricity, the Federal Government has unfolded a 12-month emergency plan on gas supply in the country.

Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, said on Wednesday in Abuja that the plan is designed to correct the misalignment between the nation’s gas supply and the national power supply aspirations.

Acknowledging electricity supply as a key aspect of the transformation agenda of government, Mrs. Alison-Madueke underscored the need for accelerated and sustained delivery of energy services needed by Nigerian to function effectively.

Consequently, she said the delivery of gas to assure sufficient, uninterrupted supply to existing as well as new thermal power generating plants in the country has received a special attention in recent times, with daily gas supply to power plants outstripping demand.

She said the decision to initiate the emergency supply plan followed a close analysis of the supply chain, which revealed significant misalignment between progress in power projects and gas supply sources over the last decade.

“With the National Integrated Power Projects (NIPP) coming on stream, there are indications of increasing pressure to meet up with the quantity of gas required as fuel to power the plants and at the correct locations,” she said. “To quickly and holistically address the misalignment, a 12-month “Domestic Gas Supply Emergency Plan” is being deployed immediately.”

During this period, the minister said the Ministry of Petroleum Resources would work with the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the gas producing companies to implement various measures to accelerate gas supply in order to ameliorate the potential gap between gas demand and supply.

Already, government has strengthened the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria Limited (GACN), a Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)-regulated company of the Ministry, charged with the responsibility of sourcing for and allocating gas, to enable it perform its roles as operator of the commercial framework of the Gas Master Plan

The Minister said apart from its traditional gas demand management role, which includes processing requests from gas buyers, managing gas supply/demand allocation as well as facilitating Gas Supply Aggregation Agreement (GSAA) negotiations, the GACN would take additional responsibilities.

These include identifying gas sources/suppliers and designing incentives for accelerated domestic gas delivery; driving the implementation of the findings of the recently constituted Emergency Gas Committee with emphasis on short and medium term gas supply; ensuring integration as well as alignment between gas demand and supply to ensure robustness of longer term gas supply to power, and provide implicit data to enable the DPR to be more proactive in compelling suppliers to meet Domestic gas Supply Obligations.

Meanwhile, Kunle Allen has been appointed as the Chief Executive Officer for GACN to ensure the effective coordination and delivery of the above roles within this period of emergency.