Nothing less than 110 Expressions of Interest (EOIs) have been received from companies seeking to buy the 10 National Integrated Power Plants (NIPPs) built by the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC) Limited.
The submission of bids for the power plants with combined generation capacity of 5,032 megawatts (Mmw) ended at 5pm yesterday.
The plants are Olorunsogun 11 with installed capacity of 750mw, Ihovbor 450mw, Geregu 434mw, Omotosho 11, 500mw, Sapele 450mw, Calabar 561mw, Egbema 338mw, Gbarian 225mw, Omoku 250Mmw, and Alaoji 1,074mw.
Giving details of the bids, the managing director of NDPHC, Mr. ames Olotu, and the director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterpises (BPE), Benjamin Dikki, who jointly addressed journalists, said 106 EoIs were submitted at the NDPHC office in Maitama, Abuja while four were submitted at the BPE, which were both listed as submission centres by the government.
Olotu explained that details of the analysis will be released to the media after all the EOIs have been opened and analysis carried out to determine how many bids were received for each power plant.
“We will give you the details of how many expressions of interest we got for each plant by the time we open the packages and carry out analysis of the expression,” he said.
According to him, of the 10 power plants put up for sale, five have reached 96 per cent completion, one at 90 per cent while the remaining four are at 80 per cent completion stages.
He said the transaction is expected to be completed by late January 2014 when the preferred bidders will be announced, adding that at the closure of the process, only completed power plants will be handed over to the preferred bidders.
Dikki, who stated that the submissions will be opened on Monday, noted that after the analysis, details of how many EOIs were submitted for each plant will be made public.
There was a mild drama at the premises of the NDPHC yesterday when bidders who did not meet the 5pm deadline were shut out.
Also yesterday, Vice President Namadi Samb, expressed worry over inadequate funds from the Multi-year-Tariff-Order (MYTO) and inability to pay for gas in the power sector.