IBOM POWER BACK ON STREAM, PUMPS 100 MW TO THE NATIONAL GRID
Akwa Ibom State Government owned Ibom power plant is now producing and contributing about 100MW of electricity to the national grid.
Shortly after it recorded 195 days without outage, Ibom plant was shut down on the 21st of October, 2016 due to maintenance work done on Accugas facility.
Explaining the reason behind the plant shutdown, the Managing Director of Ibom Power, Engr. Meyen Etukudo stated that it was due to a critical system upgrade and maintenance of the Ikot Abasi Gas Receiving Facility (IGRF) from Accugas to Ibom power.
The 60 km 18-inch IGRF from Uquo to Ikot Abasi is the distribution infrastructure that delivers gas from Accugas to Ibom power plant.
Engr. Etukudo added that during the period of the IGRF maintenance, gas supply to Ibom power plant will be disrupted and consequently the three units of the 191MW power plant will not be generating.
Although the maintenance was initially scheduled to last for 45 days which elapsed on the 4th of December 2016, it spanned to 114 days as gas was restored to Ibom plant on the 12thof February 2017.
Ibom power plant is one of the 22 gas fired power plants in Nigeria. It has three installed units - Unit #1 & #2 with 38MW each while unit #3 which is the biggest, has 115MW for a total of 191MW installed capacity.
Unit #3 is currently evacuating about 100MW to the national grid.