Blackout looms as TotalEnergies suspends gas supply to Alaoji power plant

The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Limited says it has shut down the 504MW Alaoji power plant in Abia state.

Alaoji power plant is one of the ten NIPP plants. It is located in Alaiyi, a community near Aba in Abia state.

According to NDPHC, this is due to the vandalisation of TotalEnergies Northern Option Pipeline Line (NOPL) on January 7.

The NOPL facilitates the transport of associated gas to the National Integrated Power Plant at Alaoji, Abia state. 

Emmanuel Ojor, head, communication and public relations, NPDHC, in a statement issued on Monday, said TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Ltd had declared a force majeure resulting from the vandalisation of the pipeline at KP41 Alaoma Etche Cluster. 

Force majeure is a clause that allows a company to skip contractual obligations following issues beyond its control.

Located in the Oil Mining Lease (OML) 58 onshore Nigeria, the NOPL serves as an important development of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, the NNPC2 (60%) and TotalEnergies (40%). 

He said the company had notified NPDHC that the Line Block Valve at KP38 was shut to isolate the sabotage point and depressurisation of the line — and it would affect gas supply to Alaoji Power Plant until further notice.

“As a result of this development, TotalEnergies EP Nigeria Ltd stated that Gas supply to Alaoji Power Plant was suspended due to this unfortunate event,” NAN quoted Ojor as saying. 

“Preliminary investigation to determine the extent of the damage is ongoing, and repair works shall commence as soon as feasible.”

He noted that Omotosho NIPP was closed in December 2021 when Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) due to system-wide curtailment of all gas off-takers by the company ‘to forestall the imminent collapse of the gas grid’. 

“NGC said at the time that the Trans-Forcardos Pipeline (TFP), belonging to NGC, was breached on Dec. 17, 2021,” he said. 

“That breach led to the deferment of about 250MMscfd of gas from the pipeline network, a situation that brought the network pressure to abysmal levels, thereby triggering an emergency.

“The curtailment impacted operations of NDPHC negatively with Omotosho NIPP being shut down and gas supply to GEREGU NIPP and Ihovbor NIPP also limited, thus leading to part load or low generation from these available power plants.

“The management of NDPHC assures our customers that Alaoji Power Plant and others will resume power generation as soon as gas supply is restored.”