By Sam Jones
YENAGOA (Sundiata Post) – The Nigeria Delta Power Holding Company has assured that the Gbarain Power Plant located at Koroama in Yenagoa Local Government Gbarain Area of Bayelsa State would soon be operational.
NDPHC Managing Director, Chiedu Ugbo gave the assurance on Tuesday while addressing members of the House of Representatives Committee on Power who were on an oversight visit to the plant.
Ugbo disclosed that cash flow constraint was the major issue that delayed the resuscitation of the Power Control Module that was burnt pointing out that when he came on board in 2016, the Gbarain Power Plant was still a construction site.
Ugbo said “We had to put a unit to the grid and unfortunately the temporary power control module put in place got burnt. But at the time it happened, we had a more pressing threat to the community which was the line pipe laid before 2015 was being washed away by River Nun.
“It got to a point when the pipeline was dangling on top of the river and no responsible management would ignore such tremendous threat to the host community. We shut down the plant, made sure we fixed that pipeline by doing a horizontal direction by burying it many metres away.
“We couldn’t take the two capital intensive projects together because of our financial limitations. Right now, we are being owed close to N200 billion because as NBET is paying, it is accumulating more.
“Right now, we have completed the line pipe project and the entire community is now safe. It is now time to confront the PCM issues and we have informed the original equipment manufacturer, Scheider. We have done the procurement but to fast-track the resuscitation of Gbarain, we are moving one from one of our sites and replace it with the one that will be purchased.
On the date that the PCM would be fixed, Ugbo said that being an engineering issue, it would be difficult to mention a particular date immediately.
“I assure the honorable member representing Yenagoa/Kolokuma/Okpokuma Federal Constituency, Oboku Oforji that our team will sit with representatives of Bayelsa State Government and agree on timelines to bring the equipment and install it.
“This was the first site I visited after I resumed as managing director. There was a procurement for reinforcement of the 1.5 kilometre gas pipeline from Shell facility to this place. It was on the bank of River Nun.”
The 252 megawatts Gbarain Power Plant is an open cycle gas turbine power plant built to accommodate future conversion to combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) configuration.
