The House of Representatives has urged Vice President Kashim Shettima to summon an emergency meeting of the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Board for the urgent revival of the Gbarain Power Plant to boost the efficiency of the national grid.
Apart from Shettima who is the Chairman of the NDPHC Board, the House also summoned the Managing Director of the company, Joseph Ugbo to appear before its Committee on Power to explain the state of the Gbarain Power Plant.
Gbarain Power Plant, an open cycle gas turbine power plant built to accommodate future conversion to combined cycle gas turbine configuration, is an operating power station of at least 252 megawatts located in Koroama, Yenagoa in Bayelsa State.
These resolutions followed the adoption of a motion of urgent public importance moved by the member representing Yenagoa/Opokuma Federal Constituency, Bayelsa State, Hon. Oboku Oforji at plenary.
Presenting motion, Oforji stated that on November 30, 2020, the NDPHC lost the Power Control Module of the power plant to a fire incident.
According to him: “The Bayelsa State Government offered to take some responsibilities of the NDPHC, since it was the most affected, particularly as the state-owned Niger Delta University derives its electricity supply from the station.
“The State Government undertook the rehabilitation and restoration of power supply through the 60MVA,132/33KV power transformer which is currently supplying the Gbarain Power Station auxiliaries and the host communities through the 2×15 MVA33/11KV injection substation which was not functioning before the intervention.”
Oforji expressed worry that three years after, the NDPHC has not been able to live up to their responsibility by replacing the Power Control Module which allegedly had been lying redundant in one of its uncompleted stations.
The lawmaker said the Gbarain Power Station has a proximity of only 700m to the Gbarain-Ubie multi-million dollars central gas processing facility that transports over one billion, standard cubic feet of gas to the NLNG in Bonny, saying gas supply is not a constraint.
“One is prompted to doubt the competence of NDPHC to manage this power plant which has the potential to be the largest power station in the nation because of its comparative advantage over other power plants in its proximity to gas. Reaching its potentials, Gbarain Power Station can conveniently power the whole Niger Delta region and beyond.
“Saddened that rather than resuscitate the power plant which was built with $400m and valued as of today at over $800m, the management of the NDPHC is proposing to designate the 252MW Open Cycle Power station as a construction site, thereby abandoning its primary responsibility of running it to the benefit of the state, the Niger Delta and the nation at large,” he said.
Oforji stated that the Shell Petroleum Development Company has over 60MMsc of gas allocated to the plant which is not utilised due to the inability of the company to operate.
“It is the intervention of the Bayelsa State Government that has kept the equipment intact, because they are supposed to be under controlled temperature; if not, they would have exploded,” he added.