Mr Chiedu Ugbo, Managing Director, Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC),has given assurance that the Gbarain Power Plant in Bayelsa State will soon become operational.
He 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.
He noted that cash flow constraint was the major issue that delayed the resuscitation of the Power Control Module that got burnt.
According to him, when he came on board in 2016, Gbarain Power Plant was still a construction site.
He 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 bring washed away by River Nun.
“It got to a point when the pipeline was dangling on top of the river and no responsible management will ignore such tremendous threat to the host community.
” We shut down the plant, made sure we fix that pipeline by doing a horizontal direction by burying it many metres away,”he said.
Ugbo said that the company could not take the two capital intensive projects together because of its financial limitations.
According to him, NDPHC is 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 to replace it with the one that will be purchased”’he said.
Mr. Ugbo assured that all the engineering and gas assets were being well preserved, adding that the plant is obviously well maintained.
On the date that the PCM would be fixed, Ugbo explained that being an engineering issue, it would be difficult to mention a particular date immediately.
“To assure the honorable member representing Yenagoa, Okpokuma Federal Constituency, Mr. Ofoji 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.”he said.