• Seeks review of tariff for auxiliary infrastructure
Chairman, ETA- Zuma Group West Africa Limited, Dr. Innocent Ezuma said the firm is shopping for $6billion to actualise its 1,200megawatts (Mw) of coal-to-power project.
Addressing reporters at the weekend in Abuja, its Executive Director, Corporate Relations, Ambassador Joseph Ayalogu, who stood in for the chairman, said the company is in partnership with credible firms from China.
He ruled out any possibility of securing money from the government, stressing that the funds would come largely from both local and international private investments.
He said: “We will not say we are not shopping for fund. This is not chicken change. Everybody shops for big projects like this.
“But a lot of private money is coming and we are not expecting money from government. We would expect from financiers. We have signed an EPC contract. Our financial and contract partners will be some of the solid entities in China.
“They are easier to get what you want to do: money and resources. They have a lot of it. Secondly they are not too worrisome or skirmish about whether your coal is clean or not.”
According to him, the group of companies has invested over $500million so far in projects even though they are still at their development stages.
He decried the manner in which the western world is campaigning against coal-to-power to thwart Nigeria’s efforts at generating power from coal whereas the same countries have not decommissioned their coal power plants.
He however revealed that the company has the permit, licence and agreements for the power project in place, including approval from the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN).
The chairman noted that what is delaying the project is tariff, because the power purchase agreement with the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) did capture the issue of auxiliary infrastructure.
Ezuma said the firm held a meeting with the Minister of Power, Works and Housing last year, adding that he agreed to review the auxiliary infrastructure in the Multi Year Tariff Order (MYTO).
He said: “When developing the MYTO, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) did not take into consideration provision for some auxiliary infrastructure like transmission line, the roads for some of these projects.
“They were not part of what was develop in the present MYTO because we have agreed with NERC the tariff for the power plants. So, what is holding us back now are those auxiliary infrastructure which we are trying to agree on a tariff for them and late last year we had a meeting with the Ministry of Power and he is trying to wade into these issues to see how the auxiliary infrastructure can be sorted out.”
He said the firm requires 30 months to make the plant operational, though it is expected to produce power by 2019.
He earlier explained that the group and its clients -companies – Zuma 828 Coal Ltd, Zuma Energy Ltd, EMI among others have attained important milestone with extensive exploration and acquisitions of a good number of exploration licenses.
The chairman said the group has opened an active mine in Okobo, Ankpa Local Government, Kogi State that mines 50,000 metric tons of coal per month.
He submitted that the company can double production upon demand.
Continuing, he said: “We are the leading suppliers of premium quality coal to Nigeria industrial end-users including Zuma Energy coal-to-power project under development which will supply 1,200Mw. Zuma Energy’s coal-to-power project and its 400Mw gas-to-power project designed to supply 1,200Mw electricity to the grid, will certainly impact the country’s power supply capacity when completed.
“The coal briquette project of IMEX will provide alternative affordable energy source for the Nigerian society and help reduce the negative effect of deforestation. All these projects will provide thousands of jobs, create wealth, and rekindle hope in the capacity of Nigerians to take charge of the country’s socio-economic destiny.”