Nigeria’s power transmission grip suffered collapse Tuesday night, a development that led to widespread blackout across the country. It was learnt that the collapse was due to a fire incident on the Escravos Lagos Pipeline System of the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Limited.
Against the backdrop of the development, Nigeria’s power housing and transport says all departments are working assiduously to restore power after a near total power outage across the country that occurred on Tuesday at 8p.m local time.
In a statement, the minister of Power Raji Fashola said the “ Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC) reported a fire incident on its Escravos Lagos Pipeline System near Okada, Edo State on Tuesday, 2nd January, 2018.”
The minister said the accident caused an interruption in gas supply and “a shutdown of the pipeline supplying gas to Egbin 1,320MW; Olorunsogo NIPP 676MW, Olorunsogo 338MW, Omotosho NIPP 450MW, Omotosho 338 MW and Paras 60MW power stations”.
“Most of Nigeria’s power generation is from thermal power stations that require gas for fuel. The gas is produced by oil and gas companies overseen by the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. The gas is delivered to the power stations through pipelines owned and operated by Nigerian Gas Processing and Transportation Company Ltd (NGPTC), a subsidiary of Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC).” He said.
The minister appealed for patience as he said the “TCN and the generation companies are working to restore operation of the national grid.”
Once the national grid is restored output from the hydroelectric power stations and all other unaffected gas fired thermal power stations will be increased to the extent possible to minimize the impact of loss of generation from the affected power stations while NNPC takes necessary steps to restore gas supply.
