The board of the African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved $210 Million for Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), in a bid to support its National Transmission and Expansion Project,(NTEP -1 )projects across Nigeria.
The decision for the support was reached in a board resolution on Wednesday at the bank’s headquarters in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire, a statement issued by TCN said.
The NTEP-1 is one of the projects under Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion programme financed by the bank, which is targeted at rehabilitating and expanding parts of the transmission grid in the North West, South-South and the South East regions.
The project is expected to reconstruct old transmission lines and build new ones as well as construct new substations, contributing to further increase in TCN’s transmission capacity, it explained in the statement Thursday.
In the statement issued by Ndidi Mbah, TCN’s General Manager, the company noted that even though the approval has just been given, it had already concluded Environmental Studies including Resettlement Action Plan in which people that would be affected by the acquisition of the Right of Way (RoW) for the proposed transmission lines were identified, the report had been submitted to AfDB.
Also the advert for the pre-qualification of contractors had been carried out under advance procurement and evaluation of submissions from consultants that submitted “Expression of interest” for the procurement of consultancy for the project is on-going.
According to the statement, adopting the use of advance procurement in the execution of its projects, has given TCN lead time, reducing procurement period by six months.
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The procurement processes for the project is about 70% complete, meaning that execution of the projects under NTEP-1 would soon commence in earnest, even though it has just been approved by the AfDB board.
TCN further noted that the NTEP-1 projects would address some transmission lines and substations requirements in the North West, South-South and South East regions of the nation.
In the North West, the projects that would be executed include the construction of 212KM Double Circuit 330kV Quad conductor (Kaduna to Kano); installation of 2x150MVA and 2x60MVA transformers and bay extensions in Zaria; installation of 2x150MVA and 2x60MVA transformers with associated bay feeders and bay extensions in Kaduna Millennium city; installation of 2x60MVA transformers and outgoing feeders in Rigasa Kaduna; and the installation of 2x60MVA transformers and out-going feeders in Jaji, Kaduna. The substations would all have turn-in and turn-out transmission lines.
In the South -South and South East, NTEP-1 would reconstruct the 107KM Double Circuit Delta-Benin transmission lines into a 330kV quad line; reconstruct the 138KM Alaoji- Ihiala – Onitsha Single Circuit line into 330kV Double Circuit Quad line.
TCN noted that NTEP-2 which would execute projects mainly in the North East and parts of the central states of the nation is also in the pipeline and had reached an advanced stage on the funding processing.
TCN assured that the present management of the company was determined to ensure that the projects are completed as scheduled, in line with its four-year Transmission Rehabilitation and Expansion Programme (TREP). The timeframe for execution of all the NTEP-1 projects will be twenty-four (24) months after award of contracts.
