The Bayelsa State Government has signed a deal in the hydrocarbon value chain with the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) by entering into a gas sale agreement through the Bayelsa Development and Investment Corporation (BDIC) for the purpose of power supply to the Kolo Creek Gas Turbine.
Oil prices have been unstable for some months now, and this move shows how Bayelsa State Governor, Henry Seriake Dickson, is trying to protect and diversify the economy of the gas-rich state.
The BDIC, in a statement through its Group Managing Director of the Corporation, Tamunoye Alazigha, described the development as historic and said that the Corporation was improving on the required infrastructure to receive and generate power to augment the income of the state as well as create employment.
He said: “By this agreement, the SPDC would sell gas to the BDIC with the option of upward review of the volume to accommodate additional power investments. The contracted gas volume is sufficient to keep the Kolo Creek Gas Turbine up and running and leaves some that can in the short term be used to power the 31MW Power plant for which the state only recently entered into a concession agreement with Robo-Michael to complete and operate within the agreed framework.”
“The Bayelsa Electricity Company Limited, one of our subsidiaries, is actively engaged in power generation, distribution and marketing, utilizing the finest system of automation techniques,” he said.
Bayelsa State already has the Gas delivery infrastructure that delivers gas to the Power plants at Imiringi and as such will only be expanded as the case may be. The state has gas reserves in excess of 18 trillion cubic feet. The interim gas purchase agreement is expected to remain operational until the parties negotiate and execute a Gas Sale and Aggregation Agreement (GSAA) under the Nigeria Gas Master Plan that will include the Gas Aggregation Company of Nigeria (GACN).
Read More On THISDAY