By Peter OBIORA InvestAdvocate
Lagos (INVESTADVOCATE)-Nigeria’s Oil marketing giant, Oando Plc has said it will build a $600 million 400-mgawatt power plant in Nigeria; a Bloomberg report quoted Bolaji Osunsanya, chief executive officer of the company in an interview it granted on Wednesday.
The report said this is coming on the heels of three (3) failed bids by the oil marketer to buy into units of Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN).
According to the report, Osunsanya said works on the plant is expected to commence by mid-2015 and would last for about three (3) years.
Nigeria facing daily blackouts, sold 14 state-owned utilities to companies including Siemens AG last year to reduce supply cuts in the country of about 170 million people. ‘’Nigeria remains a target for investors eager to tap a market where demand for electricity is more than double current capacity of about 3,100 megawatts. South Africa, with about 49 million people, has available capacity of about 33,000 megawatts,’’ the report said.
Oando in June 2014 concluded its $1.65 billion acquisition of ConocoPhillips’s Nigerian oil and gas assets following regulatory approval. ‘’Its gas and power unit operates a 228-kilometer (142-mile) natural-gas pipeline network, supplying electricity plants and industrial users in Lagos, the commercial capital, as well as the oil-industry hub of Port Harcourt. It plans to expand its network to at least 600 kilometers,’’ Osunsanya said.
The CEO of the oil and gas marketing firm affirmed that Oando will add about 17 kilometers of new gas links to boost distribution in Port Harcourt within a year, ‘’the company is carrying out feasibility plans for a 300-kilometer pipeline connecting to the Escravos-Lagos link to Ibadan in the west through Ilorin to Jebba in the central Kwara state,’’ he said.
“By this time next year, we should know for a fact where we will be in the development of the Escravos-Ibadan-Ilorin-Jebba link because by then, I expect we would have finished both the feasibility and the front-end work,” Osunsanya said.
At the end of trading on the Nigerian bourse on Friday Oando lost N1.14 as its share price opened at N22.80 and closed at N21.66; losing five percent.
