NNPC Increases Gas-to-power by 64%

• NNPC Increases Gas-to-power by 64%

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) yesterday said the average national daily gas supply to the nation’s power plants has risen by 64 per cent.

The rise in gas to power was contained in the Corporation’s Financial and Operations Report for May this year, according to a statement.

The average natural gas supply to power plants of 729 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) in May this year was 63.74 per cent higher than the daily gas supply to the plants, of 44 6mmscfd, during the same month last year.

The report said the average national daily gas production for May 2017 stood at 242.70billion cubic feet (BCF), or an average of 7,829.11mmscfd, representing a slight increase, compared with April’s gas production of 672mmscfd.

It also stated that NNPC, within the review period, activated plans to build 500million standard cubic feet of gas-per-day metering plant to serve the planned capacity expansion of Egbin Power Plant.

The report, the 22nd edition, like the previous ones, is designed to promote and sustain effective communication with stakeholders.

According to the report, the three refineries in Port Harcourt, Warri and Kaduna were operational in May, with a minimum of six million litres of petrol and a similar quantity of Automotive Gas Oil, also known as diesel, loaded out from the refineries daily.

The three NNPC refineries have a combined nameplate capacity of 445,000 barrels of crude oil per stream dayly.

The report indicated that the rehabilitation of the refineries would restore their nameplate capacities.

Diesel price, the report also noted, witnessed a nationwide crash by as much as 42 per cent following strategic intervention by the Corporation, to sustain supply of diesel and avoid the first quarter 2017 unpleasant experience when retail price of AGO shot to an all-time high of N300 per litre.

The intervention pushed the product’s retail prices, as at May 2017 to rally betweenN175 and N200 across the country.

Another highpoint of the May report, is that there was a decline in the incidents of oil pipeline breaks which had, in recent time, witnessed a steady reduction through the months, following the sustained community/stakeholders’ engagement initiative.

The report said the number of pipeline breaks recorded within the period stood at 55, which was an improvement compared to 82 vandalised points recorded in April 2017. This figure represents about 33 per cent reduction relative to the previous months and also a remarkable improvement to corresponding period of May 2016 which recorded 260 cases.