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Three Nigerian engineering consultants have advised the Nigerian Breweries Plc against building a power plant in Aba, Abia State.
The advice follows recent news reports that one of the country’s leading breweries has obtained a licence for captive electricity plants in three cities where it has production operations.
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“It is understandable if the company has such electricity generation plants in Lagos and Enugu”, Ukaegbu Egege, Dikedinigbo Ejike and Uche Elugwu stated in a statement Sunday, “but certainly not in Aba where power supply has become stable and predictable since the middle of last December, thanks to increasing gas supply to the 188MW Geometric Power Plant in the Osisioma Industrial Zone in Aba from the NNPC Gas Marketing Company Limited and its partner, Heirs Energies”.
The Geometric Power Group is in the process of completing a 20MW dedicated line to Factory Road in Aba, where the brewery has a manufacturing plant.
“With the line set to be commissioned by Abia State Governor Alex Otti, together with two other dedicated lines to Owerrinta and Ogbor Hill, this month and next”, declared the trio, “there is no point for any firm in any of the three mentioned industrial estates in Aba to build its own power plant or even to use compressed natural gas (CNG) for self-power generation because it will make no business sense.”
Recalling that a former NB Plc chief executive, Eze Festus Odimegwu, personally signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on behalf of the firm while former Power Minister, Bart Nnaji, signed on behalf of the Geometric Power Group in Lagos in 2005 for constant, quality and safe electricity supply to the foremost brewer, Engineers Egege, Ejike and Elukwu noted that the MoU and others like the one with Guinness Nigeria Plc, helped to mobilise international investor confidence in the Geometric Power business.
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“Even the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank arm that finances private sector businesses, began to display tremendous interest following the MoUs with Western multinationals,”.they explained.
The three engineering consultants, all graduates of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), argued that it would not be consistent with Odimegwu’s vision to make NB an exemplary if it fails to obtain electricity from Geometric Power to reduce cost by a significant percentage.
“All Nigerians are still eminently proud of the record of this great UNN alumnus who was the university valedictorian in his time and who went on to make the Nigerian Breweries Plc Nigeria’s most capitalised and most valued firm and the first company and the first in Nigeria’s history to record a N10 billion profit”, the engineering consultants remarked.
They observed that one of the cost-cutting measures the NB took under Odimegwu’s leadership was to outsource the firm’s huge haulage business to competent Nigerian firms with excellent records in this field in recognition that transportation of goods all over the country was not its core business.
They said: “To embark on captive power which is exceedingly expensive will be tantamount to spending a fortune and enormous time on something that is not part of its core business, thereby returning Nigerian Breweries to the pre-Odimegwu days.
“Since the firm is unlikely to consume more than 6MW for its Aba operation, which it can easily source from the 188MW Geometric Power Plant right there in Aba, there is little justification for this publicly quoted firm to embark on a captive power plant.
“Public power supply in Aba is now regular, safe and affordable because Aba Power Electric Company has an embedded electricity generation plant”.
