Obinna Ezeobi, Abuja
Nigeria may be plunged into total darkness as from Saturday, as Shell Petroleum Development Company gives a notice of its plan to shut down three critical gas plants that supply dry gas to the Power Holding Company of Nigeria.
The company made this known in a letter dated February 10, 2010 and addressed to the Minister of Power, Dr. Lanre Babalola and his petroleum counterpart, Dr. Rilwanu Lukman.
SPDC notified the Federal Government that it might be compelled to shut down the Oben, Sapele and Utorogu gas plants on Saturday unless the stock of condensate, a by-product of gas blocking its pipelines, was evacuated.
This came just as the total power generation dipped to 2,400 megawatts on Tuesday, compounding the woes in the nation's electricity sector.
Shell is the biggest supplier of gas to the Nigerian Gas Company, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which in turn transmits the gas to PHCN and other gas customers....
The thermal power plants, which run on gas, contribute 70 per cent of the nation's electricity; hence shutting the three gas plants would result in near total darkness in the country.
Because the Trans-Forcados gas network, which is the bedrock for Oben, Sapele, and Ughelli Utorogu gas plants has been repeatedly compromised by militants, a decision was taken to divert the condensate to Warri Refinery and Petrochemical Company, which would use some and sell the rest to Kaduna Refinery and Petrochemical Company.
But with the refineries having not worked for a while owing to the vandalisation of the Channomi creek pipeline which supplies them with crude oil, the condensate was not used up, hence the need to find a new buyer who would move to the Warri refinery and lift the condensate.
SPDC explained in the letter that there were 437,000 barrels of condensate at the Warri refinery, which must be evacuated before it could continue producing and supplying dry gas, adding that it might be forced to shut down the plants as it would have nowhere else to evacuate the by-products to.
Oben and Sapele gas plants produce 3,000 barrels of condensate daily which must be evacuated daily and regularly for gas production to continue.
Our correspondent learnt that the matter had been brought to the attention of Acting President Goodluck Jonathan, who was said to have been brainstorming with officials of the power and oil sectors on how to avert the impending blackout.
On why power supply had deteriorated in the past weeks, the Special Adviser (Media) to the Minister of Power, Mr. Yakubu Lawal, told our correspondent that gas supply to thermal plants had dipped considerably, with five thermal plants heavily affected.
He said Egbin had the capacity to generate 1,000MW, but could only do 600MW currently due to gas constraints.
Other thermal plants, which were negatively affected included AES located within the Egbin precinct, Omotosho, Olorunsogo and Geregu.
He explained that Chevron Escravos 1 was supposed to supply 185million standard cubic feet of gas per day but was not making gas available at the moment just like the Chevron Escravos 2, which was expected to supply 300 million scfd.
Lawal said, "500 million scfd was supposed to come from Sapele but nothing at all is coming. Ughelli is also expected to supply 90 million scfd but is only bringing 30 million scfd.
He, however, explained that Ughelli was meant to be a dedicated line to Sapele power plant, which was undergoing some rehabilitation and could only utilise 30 million scfd.
He said that the 90 million scfd obtained from Oben was now under threat if the condensate produced by the plant was not evacuated
"Utorogu is expected to bring 360 million scfd, but we only get 300 million scfd," he added.
When the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mr. Mohammed Barkindo, undertook a facility tour of the gas and power stations run by the SPDC last year, he had said that the Utorogu gas plant would increase production to 350 million scfd ahead of December 2009.
He said NNPC had initiated discussions with SPDC on the expansion programme of the plant, so as to ramp it up to 510 million scfd this year.
He said, "I have got firm reassurance on the recovery of the Trans-Forcados pipeline, which is the heart of the domestic supply system, accounting for nearly 900 million scfd of gas.
"The Trans-Forcados network is the bedrock for Oben, Sapele, Ughelli Utorogu and once that network is compromised, then we have significant challenges."
Natural gas condensate is a low-density mixture of hydrocarbon liquids that are present as gaseous components in the raw natural gas produced from many natural gas fields. It condenses out of the raw gas if the temperature is reduced to below the hydrocarbon dew point temperature of the raw gas. The natural gas condensate is also referred to as simply condensate, or gas condensate, or sometimes natural gasoline because it contains hydrocarbons within the gasoline boiling range. Raw natural gas may come from any one of three types of gas wells:[1][2] Crude oil wells – Raw natural gas that comes from crude oil wells is called associated gas. This gas can exist separate from the crude oil in the underground formation, or dissolved in the crude oil. Dry gas wells – These wells typically produce only raw natural gas that does not contain any hydrocarbon liquids. Such gas is called non-associated gas. Condensate wells – These wells produce raw natural gas along with natural gas liquid. Such gas is also non-associated gas and often referred to as wet gas.
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