SEPLAT to boost power supply with $300m gas plant

Seplat Petroleum Development Company Plc has announced the signing of a major $300m gas sale and supply contract which will leverage the NPDC/ Seplat JV’s investment in the gas domestication business and ultimately boost electricity supply in the country.

Seplat’s Oben Gas Plant will supply the Azura-Edo IPP with the project’s fuel gas requirements. This falls within the company’s medium to long term goals.   Austin Avuru, CEO of Seplat notes, “The domestic gas space is a huge opportunity for Seplat. The

privatization of the domestic power industry, coupled with a massive government initiative to promote the use of natural gas, has driven investment in gas infrastructure development and power generation.”

The Nigerian government’s ‘Gas Master Plan’ is designed to utilize the country’s enormous gas reserves to boost industrialization and electrification. A gas industrial zone including a fertilizer plant and a petrochemical facility is being built in the country’s west. Following these positive developments, Avuru reaffirms that a ”fifteen-year gas supply contract for power plants will underpin the expansion of Seplat’s domestic gas business. This will also promote the company’s organic growth, which is to continue to apply the best technology and human capital that SEPLAT has to drive production and reserves growth in current assets and vigorous growth of our gas domestication business.”

The investments by Azura and Seplat constitute over a $1 billion of local and international financing into the Nigerian gas and power sector.

The Azura-Edo IPP comprises a 450MW open cycle gas turbine power station; a short transmission line connecting the power plant to a local substation and a short underground gas pipeline connecting the power plant to the country’s main gas-supply. It represents the first phase of a 1,500MW power plant facility. The plant’s location on the outskirts of Benin City is ideal because of its close proximity to Nigeria’s biggest gas distribution pipeline (which makes gas feedstock easily available) and its unique accessibility to the country’s high voltage transmission network which facilitates the evacuation and distribution of power.

The first phase of the plant, which is targeted to come on stream in 2017, is forecast to create over 1,000 jobs during its construction and operation. Azura-Edo is also the first Nigerian power project to benefit from the World Bank’s recently developed, ‘Partial Risk Guarantee’ structure, specifically created to meet the developing needs of emerging markets world-wide.

With a significant additional investment of $300m in its gas business, Seplat is poised to help the Azura-Edo IPP actualize its capacity to boost power supply and the country’s economy.