The Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) says it is strongly displeased with the contractor has handled the construction of the Egbema Power Plant near Owerri, Imo State; such that after nine years since it was awarded to Rockson Engineering Nigeria Limited, an indigenous power construction company, the plant is unfinished.
The Egbema Power project, with delivery capacity of 380 MW, was awarded by former president, Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration in 2006, the same time as most of the six other gas turbine electricity generating plants were awarded.
It had a configuration of three gas turbines (GE Frame 9E Gas Turbines); Capacity: 380.7MW (ISO) and 338 MW (Net).
According to Albert Okorogu, the Executive Director of NDPHC, in an interview with BusinessDay, Rockson Engineering has not shown any commitment in completing the power project; given its importance to millions of Nigerians who go daily with little or no power supply.
Okorogu said NDPHC inherited the project from the NIPP, and has been committed to realize the project along with similar ones across the country. But he particularly accused Rockson Engineering for very poor job so far.
He lamented that it was so unfortunate that after nine years of award of contract of Egbema Generation Company Limited, to the EPC [engineering procurement and construction contractor, Rockson Engineering, the plant was yet to reach any appreciable level of completion.
Meanwhile Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has expressed his displeasure over the non-completion yet of the NIPP Lot 2- Egbema Power Plant Project, after nearly a decade since its contract was awarded as “a simple cycle power plant with 3 Gas Turbines, having the generating capacity of 112.8 Megawatts of electricity and a combined generating capacity of 338 MW of electricity into the national grid.
In 2103, Basil Ozoh, the project manager of the power plant under the NIPP, informed that the project has provision for future extension, as future plant configurations include 6 units of Gas Turbine Generators and 3 units of Steam Turbine Generators.
Ozoh speaking then on the status of the power plant, said for Gas Turbines 1 – 3, the turbines and generators have been erected and the First Fire Commissioning and Commercial Operation has been scheduled for the 4th quarter of 2013.
But sadly, this has yet to happen, two years on.
It was gathered that the Egbema Power plant has been bedevilled by a number of curious challenges, such as: initial delay in release of advance payment to the EPC contractor six months after signing of the contract; delay in payment of outstanding invoices certified for work done from 2008 – 2009.
Also, the contractor, Rockson Engineering cited other challenges as militancy in the Niger Delta region and high rate of kidnapping from 2008 – 2010; unprecedented flood levels of River Niger and as a result the Orashi River in the months of September and November 2012, which had caused further delays in delivering the project.
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