Siemens Power has announced an extension by five years of the completion of the 11,000 megawatts Nigerian Presidential Power Initiative (PPI), citing “delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic”, which disrupted supply chains.
It would be recalled that in 2019, Nigeria’s Bureau of Public Enterprises had signed an agreement with Siemens to upgrade the country’s grid by 2025.
However, a report by Bloomberg on Monday quoted the head of Business Development And Government Relations at Siemens Energy, Oladayo Orolu, as saying in an interview that the company expected to complete the project by 2030.
“When we conceptualised this project in 2018, our plan was within two years we should be done with phase one, but then COVID-19 happened, disrupting supply chains, which meant getting raw materials took longer than before. The three-phase project was set back by delays in starting the first phase.”
He said cost overruns also affected the project’s completion, as they expect electricity output to increase by an additional 2,000 megawatts at the completion of phase one by 2025, with the objective of phase one to quick fix projects that will free up 2,000 megawatts.
“We currently have 5000, we are looking at taking that to 7,000. Prices are not at the same level they used to be. Some raw material components costs have been doubled, some are still close to where they used to be, some are just marginally higher,” he said. In 2020, phase one was projected to cost about €2 billion.”
