STARTLING revelations that the N1.3 billion ($8.5 million) gas pipeline being laid to the Alaoji Power Plant in Aba, Abia State, is not suitable for the facility may compel the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to review the project.
The Guardian learnt that both the size and nature of the pipeline to transport gas to the plant cannot effectively convey the product because the pressure level is very low.
Senior officials, especially engineers at the Nigeria Gas Company (NGC), a subsidiary of the (NNPC), confirmed this when they told The Guardian that they were worried about the workability of the pipeline to the plant located on the outskirts of commercial town of Aba.
The contract started on a shaky note when the Federal Government last year discovered that due process was breached in the award of the contract.
Consequently, the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) issued a query to the NNPC, demanding explanation on why the contract award did not follow due process. The query was issued last September with a reminder written three months later.
According to the NGC officials, "it is technically not feasible for the new 18 inches pipeline, measuring 2.5 kilometres to carry gas efficiently from the existing 12 inches pipeline, which was built in the 1960s by Shell."
The engineers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, further described the existing pipeline as obsolete and of questionable integrity.
"It is a low pressure pipeline," one of them declared, claiming that NGC engineers advised strongly against "this bogus project.
"It can transport gas to manufacturing companies and others in Aba, but not a big power plant, which requires a high pressure pipeline of 24 inches."
When contacted on the experts' claims, NNPC Group General Manager (Public Affairs Division), Dr. Levi Ajuonuma, said the safety of Nigerians is paramount at every point in time in projects of such nature, adding that the corporation would give the NGC engineers the needed support to keep the project going.
Ajuonuma said: "Nobody has a monopoly of knowledge. If the engineers have alleged this, then we have to work towards it. We will also need independent confirmation from other sources, then render all the necessary support."
The contract for laying the new gas pipeline was awarded last August to an indigenous firm without competitive bidding following a meeting two months earlier of the NNPC top management in Abuja where an executive director, now retired, described the need for the award as "a national emergency in view of its capacity to help generate considerable electricity."
The NNPC management, it has now been learnt, was told that the old 12 inches low-pressure pipeline could carry enough gas for the first two units of the 1,074 megawatts Alaoji plant, which were scheduled to come on stream in November 2010.
Five months after, neither the plant nor the gas pipeline is ready, thereby threatening national electricity growth projections.
The new 18 inches pipeline is supposed to supply gas to the first two turbines of the Alaoji plant to generate 240MW pending the time the main pipeline measuring some 25 kilometres by 24 inches is completed, thus availing the nation of 1,074MW.
" If it is proved," a retired NNPC Group General Manager said in an interview, " by the time the new 18 inches gas pipeline to the plant is handed over to the NGC that it is technically incongruous for it to take gas from the old 12 inches low pressure pipeline built in the 1960s, the nation will have to demand an explanation from those who awarded the N1.3 billion contract without competitive bidding because it was thought to be a national emergency."
Source: Technical lapses threaten 1,074 mw power plant (http://www.guardiannewsngr.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=47467:technical-lapses-threaten-1074-mw-power-plant-&catid=1:national&Itemid=559)