The Nigerian government and Benco Energy Limited of Brazil have signed a N144 billion (about $960m) Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to construct a 700 megawatts power plant in Nigeria.Speaking at the signing ceremony on Friday in Abuja, Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Prof. Chinedu Nebo, said that a couple of years ago, Electrobras of Brazil and the Nigerian government signed an MoU which was aimed at bringing into Nigeria Electrobras to help the country develop as much as 10,000MW of power.
“What we are seeing today is the very first takeoff of the implementation of that MoU bringing Benco to work with the Federal Ministry of Power for their plant. We want to assure Benco that the terms of the MoU that we have signed today, we will do our best to implement them, Nebo said.
The minister also noted that Nigeria now generates and distributes an average of 4,500MW of power.
According to him, the transmission facilities are being beefed up to strengthen and make more reliable and stable the national grid to be able to wheel out more power.
In his remarks, the President of Benco Energy Limited, Brazil, Mr. Rodrigo Badew, said that the plant, which will be gas and vapour fired would be built in Bayelsa State in south-eastern Nigeria.
He added that the plant would have a construction period of three years.
It is a 700MW plant although it can reduce to 688MW because this depends on location and environmental conditions. The investment is around $800 to $900 million.
Of course all these will be confirmed as soon as we have all the necessary investigations and have them more defined. The time schedule is supposed to be around three years to three and half years for the construction of the project,” he said.