The President of Transcorp Group Owen Omogiafo said Transactional Cooperation Plc popularly known as Transcorp was meant to improve lives and transform Africa.
She made the disclosure during the commissioning of cleaning room at Transafam Power Plant in Afam, Oyigbo local government area of Rivers State.
She said it was impossible to achieve real economic transformation or liberalisation without power adding that transformation is powered by power
“It is this understanding that Transcorp under the leadership of the Group chairman, Tony Elumelu has to invest in the power sector”, she informed.
She also disclosed that Afam power plant is their second investment in power, while the first investment is the Ugheli plant, acquired in 2013 and was generating available capacity of 160 megawatts, but presently generating over 600 megawatts, which according to her contributes strongly to Nigerian Power sector.
The President of Transcorp Group recalled that it was the success in that investment that encouraged the company to do another investment in a generating company and in a gas plant despite the challenges within the sector, which she identified as the consistent challenge of gas supply.
“It is on record that we’ve recovered Afam 5 GT-20, it came back on September last year, with that we have had additional 138 megawatts to the national grid, to make more power available to Nigerians,” she claimed.
Speaking on the company’s target in the power sector, she said at the beginning, the company was looking at 25 percent of the power generated, but realized that the whole power infrastructure is beyond the volume of power generation, but transmission and distribution.
She said to complete the chain attention moved from only generation to supporting infrastructure, investments in the substations that would get power to the end users, and investing in the gas infrastructure to ensure availability of gas.
She further disclosed that the decision to have a clean room where GT-20 could be fixed locally on site was meant to give opportunity for workers to acquire the skill while they are being fixed, and end the issue of capital flight any other time the need arises.
“In fixing it here, the staff on ground, including the host community members are being trained, thereby localizing the repairing knowledge within the country”, the President added.
The MD/CEO of Transafam Power, Vincent Ozoude explained that the generator clean room is the repair facility where Gas turbine generator rotors are repaired.
He also said having it here would minimize cost and the timeline of shipping generator rotors out of the country to repair centers in the Midlle-East, in Europe and America.
He disclosed that the company took over the plant when it was operating at 48 megawatts of power, in less than two years ago, and it is now operating at 188 megawats of power out of 966, meaning it has doubled the growth.
