Kaduna 215 Megawatt Thermal Power Plant: FG demands consortium adherence to completion time

Nigeria’s Vice President, Mohammed Namadi Sambo in a meeting on the Kaduna 215 megawatt Thermal Power Plant held recently with the project consortium, consultants, the Ministry of Power as well as the Ministry of Transport and other contractors have directed that works on the thermal power plant should meet the end of the year deadline for the commissioning of the project.

Mohammed Namadi Sambo, who requested for a detailed programme of works for the project said that it is towards ensuring the project’s commissioning on schedule. He frowned at the requests made by the consortium for variation of optional items outside the scope of work and urged the Ministry of Power to conclude the arrangement for the fuel storage tank.

The Vice President directed that Rockson Engineering which is one of the companies in the consortium should provide their record of procurements for the Balance of Plant (BoP), including the schedule of deliveries; adding that they should commence work without delay on the civil works and construction of the storage tank. He also called for a schedule of activities for the completion of the alignment of the turbines from General Electric (GE).

He expressed satisfaction with the report presented by the Minister of Transport on the construction of railway tracks to connect the rail with the power plant for easy transportation of fuel from source. He also noted some of the challenges confronting the consortium at the site and directed them to sort out all issues and report back within two weeks. He highlighted the issues as involving the eight turbines alignment, storage tank, the electrical control system which is one of the major engineering issues as well as project delivery and additional works.

The Consultant to the project, Messrs Stiag Ecotec West Africa, while presenting its report noted that the Contractor to the substation, who is known as Skipper has progressed rightly. He further stated that work is currently at 82% completion.  Adding, the main scope of work is progressing within acceptable time limits, but the contract variation within the 33kv injection substation and the outgoing feeders have been evaluated and recommendations forwarded to the Ministry of Power for contract award.

According to him, the project has provided avenues for change in scope from the brown field site to the present green field location.

While presenting his report earlier, the Minister of Transport, Idris Umar noted that the construction of rail tracks to the project site is an addendum to the western line rehabilitation exercise. He also inferred that the length of the work is 3.8 kilometres, whilst the finishing design has been completed and would be submitted for approval to be given within two weeks.

Idris Umar pointed out that the contractor for the project has mobilized to site and has given a period of eight months within which they would complete the work, but added that the ministry is canvassing for six months completion time. He assured them that in the next three weeks, he would be in Kaduna for the ground-breaking ceremony.

The Contractors – General Electric and Rockson Engineering solicited early approval of their requests for the provision of additional fuel storage tank which has been forwarded to the Ministry of Power for consideration, in order to compliment their schedule of project delivery.

Present at the meeting were: the Minister of Power, Chinedu Nebo and the Minister of State for Power, Mohammed Wakil as well as the Ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Godknows Igali; the representatives of General Electric and Rockson Engineering, who are the consultants to the project as well as Skipper – the substation contractors and other top government officials.