THE Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation is to build 500million standard cubic feet of gas per day metering plant to serve the planned capacity expansion of Egbin Power Plant from its installed capacity of 1,320 Megawatts to 2670MW.

Babatunde Bakare, managing director of the Nigerian Gas Processing and Transmission Company, NGPTC, who spoke during the tender for the prequalification for the Engineering, Procurement and Construction, EPC, of the project, Thursday, in Abuja, said the bid exercise which witnessed bid submissions by 36 local and international companies, was a demonstration of NNPC’s commitment towards improving power supply in the country in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s vision for the power sector.

NNPC is the biggest gas supplier to Egbin power plant, which in turn, is equally the biggest power plant in Nigeria.

Audu Ibrahim, NNPC Chief Project Engineer for the project, who represented the NGPTC managing director, said the expansion of the metering system to serve the Egbin Power Plant was imperative to coping with the heightened volumes of gas that might be needed as a result of its planned expansion.

Rotimi Feyisitan, general manager, Supply Chain Management, represented by the manager, said due diligence in respect of technical and financial requirements would apply to all the 36 companies which submitted bids in line with the Corporation’s transparency policy.

Feyisitan assured that there would be no under-the-table dealing with any of the companies.

The exercise represents part of NNPC strategic moves to increase its footprint in the nation’s power supply mix, with a view to expanding the Corporation’s stakes in non-core hydrocarbon resources businesses.