Abuja — The Federal Government has announced the award of contract for the construction of the 2600 Megawatt (Mw) Mambilla plateau Hydro Power Station in Taraba State to China Gezhouba Group Corporation (CGGC) and China Geo-Engineering Corporation (CGC) at a cost of $1.4 billion.

Making this revelation recently at a Press briefing in Abuja, the Minister of Energy, Dr. Edmund Daukoru, said that the engineering design of the dam is ongoing and construction would soon start. But he cautioned that the project has between five and six years before completion.

He also said the Zungeru Hydro dam project in Niger State would soon come on stream.

Daukoru then told the Press that presently, Nigeria is the world's biggest spender in the power sector, saying no country has invested so much over such a short span of time in the power sector like Nigeria.

"The Nigerian power sector before the advent of this government was, to say the least, in a deplorable state. Only 15 out of the 79 generating units were operational in 1999, with a generation capacity of only 1,500 Mw. With the last transmission built in 1978, the power transmission infrastructure was weak, while the epileptic distribution network was incapable of providing a satisfactory level of services to consumers," he said.

According to him, by August 2003, the government took measures to: generate 10,000 Mw of electricity by the end of 2007; develop the capacity to reliably transmit and distribute the increased generation and to develop a medium term investment plan to 2010 for the sector.

He then explained that as part of the measures, government started the National Integrated Power Plants (NIPP) under which a sum of $2.5 billion is being spent.

The NIPP is made up of the 451 Mw Gbarian Power station in Bayelsa State; 230 Ihovbor station in Edo State, the 230 Gas thermal station at Omoku, Rivers State and the Sapele 451 Mw power station in Delta State.

The rest are the Egbema 338 Mw power station in Imo State; the Calabar 561Mw station in Cross River State and the 188 Mw Ibom Power plant in Akwa Ibom State.

He said that Nigeria is spending N81 billion to cover all the distribution zones of the country. He said that the scope of work for this involves, 1,701 Km of new 33 kv lines; 2,666km, of new 11kv lines and additional 3,540 MVA sub-station capacity and 22,598 transformers.

He mentioned the 414 Geregu power station, commissioned last month by President Olusegun Obasanjo, at a cost of 195 million euros.

To be commissioned in April 2007, are the N37.1 billion Gas Thermal Station at Papalanto, Ogun State, designed to produce 335 MW of electricity and 335 MW Omotosho Gas thermal station worth N37 billion.

Speaking further, the minister said that on the transmission aspect, the Federal Government is targeting 2,194 km of 330 kv lines in addition to the 4,800 km that exist. Another 809 132 kv lines will be added to the 6,100km lines that exist.

On rural electrification, he said that the Federal Government has spent about N45.8 billion from 199 to date under which a total of 836 projects have been completed.

"There are currently 1,946 on-going projects under the scheme out of which 445 are expected to be commissioned before May 2007," he said.

He said that government has connected a total of 662 local government headquarters already.

"For the year 2007," he said, "the Rural Electrification Agency has a provision of N23.3 billion for various capital projects under its mandate."

On the Nigerian Gas sector, Daukoru, a geo-physicist, with 30 years experience in the oil and gas sector, said that the Nigerian Liquefied Gas (LNG), has grown to Train 6 today from Train 2 in 1999, to make Nigeria one of the fastest growing LNG destinations.

"The NLG now exports about 22 million tonnes Per Annum (mtpa) and about 3.5 mtpa in Natural Gas Liquids (NGL).

"The plant has delivered over $3 billion in revenue to Nigeria, compared with zero income from pre-1999," he said. "With high gas price in western markets, the Nigerian gas sector has repositioned itself to leverage the opportunities resulting from these changes," he said.

He said that two new LNG plants are now being built with a combined capacity of 32 mtpa, saying that the plants are scheduled to come on stream by 2011.

"Nigeria is now on tract to be the second fastest growing LNG capacity in the world, second only to Qatar," he said.