Nigeria: Press spotlights plans by Govt to execute $3.8bn gas supply agreement in May, others

The announcement by the government of the Gas Supply and Purchase Agreement to support the Final Investment Decision for the $3.8bn Brass methanol project will be executed in May 2024 is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Punch reports that Gas Supply and Purchase Agreement to support the Final Investment Decision for the $3.8bn Brass methanol project is to be executed in May 2024, the Federal Government announced on Monday.
The Brass methanol project is a major industrial project being built in Bayelsa State to produce methanol, a key industrial chemical, using natural gas resources. Nigeria currently imports all its methanol.
Located in Brass Island, Bayelsa, the facility is to have a capacity of 10,000 tonnes of methanol per day when completed, as it is still under construction and expected to be operational this year.
The $3.8bn is to create up to 15,000 jobs during construction and aims to boost the Nigerian economy by reducing reliance on imports.
This project is a joint venture between DSV Engineering Limited, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, and the Nigerian Content Development & Monitoring Board.
The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, announced the execution date for the gas supply agreement in Abuja on Wednesday after a meeting with key stakeholders of the project in his office.
The newspaper says that in a bid to address the recurrent collapse of Nigeria’s power grid, the Nigerian Government has deployed a new technology to detect and respond to sudden drops or dips in power generation across the country.
It announced this through the Transmission Company of Nigeria on Wednesday, stating that the new Generation Dip/Loss Detection System would advance TCN’s grid management capabilities.
On Tuesday, The PUNCH reported that Nigeria witnessed its sixth power grid collapse of 2024 the preceding day, as electricity generation on the system collapsed from 2,583.77 megawatts at 2 am on Monday to 64.7MW around 3am before the grid was restored later in the day.
The report stated that though the Transmission Company of Nigeria attributed the cause of Monday’s grid collapse to a fire incident, it had consistently blamed gas shortage for power generation and the vandalism of power infrastructure for the recurrent cases of grid collapse in Nigeria.
Nigeria generates an average of 4,000MW of electricity for an estimated 200 million citizens across the country.
But this is hardly sustainable, as the grid continues to record incessant collapse due to gas supply constraints, transmission infrastructure vandalism, and liquidity crisis, among others.
To address this, TCN in a statement issued by its spokesperson in Abuja on Wednesday, said a new technology had been deployed by the Federal Government’s company to effectively manage the transmission network and the national grid.
The Vanguard newspaper reports that the Nigeria Employers’ Consultative Association (NECA) has asked the government at all levels to address factors disrupting food supply, among others to resolve the worsening food crisis confronting the country.
NECA, the voice of business in Nigeria and the umbrella body for employers in the country pleaded with the nation’s policymakers to adopt a holistic approach to address inflationary pressures and promote economic stability.
In a statement titled “Nigeria’s inflation dynamics amid currency appreciation: Need for more supplementary measures”, NECA’s Director-General, Mr. Adewale-Smatt Oyerinde, noted that while the tightening measures of the Central Bank of Nigeria have led to the recent appreciation of the Naira, there is, noticeable a decelerating increase in the recent inflation figure.
He lamented that despite currency appreciation typically dampening inflation by reducing import costs, other factors are exerting stronger upward pressure on prices.
According to him: “The latest publication of the Consumer Price Index by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, for March 2024 reveals a significant increase in the inflation rate.
“In March 2024, the inflation rate surged to 33.01 percent, marking a notable uptick from 31.7 percent recorded in February. This indicates a 1.31 percentage point increase over the period, reflecting the growing inflationary pressures in the economy.
“Moreover, compared to March 2023, the inflation rate rose by 10.97 percentage points, further underscoring the magnitude of the inflationary challenge.
The newspaper says that the World Bank Group and the African Development Bank (AfDB) yesterday committed to providing energy access to 250million people in Africa by 2030.
Both the World Bank President Ajay Banga and AfDB President, Dr. Akinwunmi Adesina, made the pledge during the ‘Energising Africa’ event held yesterday at the on-going Spring Meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington DC, USA.
No economy can industrialise in darkness – Adesina Meanwhile, Adesina said no economy could industrialised in the dark.
According to him, Africa is where the global energy battle will be won or lost.
He said that electricity supply remained the most important factor in the quest to industrialise the continent.
According to him, no economy can be competitive without energy.
Akinwumi.said that the abnormality of lack of power in Africa had been taken by some people as normal but that it was an aberration.
He said that many Africans have taken lack of electricity as normal but, added, however, that every resources must be deployed to change the narrative. He stated: “When Ajay came to see me in Abidjan, Cote’d Ivore, we agreed on two things: First, let us solve Africa’s problem of energy; and second, let Africa feed herself.
“We spent a lot of money trying to create jobs. You can’t create jobs without energy. Energy is like blood in the body of businesses. Economies thrive on energy.”
GIK/APA