Image: Minister for Power, Babantunae Fashola
The lingering epileptic power supply in Nigeria experienced further setback after Niger Delta militants attacked Chevron few days ago, dropping output by 600 megawatts.
Earlier in the month, the federal government shut down two power plants leading to a drop in power generation to 3,403 megawatts.
The two affected plants were Olorunsogo II in Ogun State and Trans-Amadi in Rivers State.
The two stations possess installed generation capacity of 625 megawatts and 25 megawatts, respectively.
The recent closure of the affected stations brings the total number of idle plants to nine.
The attack on Chevron’s facility by militants further adversely aggravated the situation having affected the flow of gas to some power plants.
The recent attack led to a loss of about 500 to 600MW of electricity.
A source at the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation told our correspondent that it was o
One of the lines transporting untreated gas from the fields to the Escravos gas plant had been attacked, abruptly reducing power output.
The Niger Delta Avengers had on Tuesday claimed that it attacked an export line operated by Chevron Nigeria Limited at Escravos in the Warri South West Council Area of Delta State.
It was the first attack by the militant group on an oil facility since it announced a ceasefire and nominated the Chief Edwin Clark-led Pan Niger Delta Group to hold talks on its behalf with the Federal Government.
The NDA, in a statement signed by its spokesman, Mudoch Agbinibo, warned multinational oil companies to stop repairs on any facility earlier attacked by its strike force.
The statement read, “Today at about 3:45am, our strike team 06 took down Chevron’s Escravos export pipeline at Escravos offshore.
“This action is to further warn all the IOCs that when we warn that there should be no repairs pending negotiation/dialogue with the people of the Niger Delta, it means there should be no repairs.”
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