Port Harcourt: Indigenous Oil Servicing Company, MG VOWGAS has said its recently installed heat treatment furnace in Port Harcourt has been providing services and saving Nigerians from severe electricity downtime.
Speaking during a media briefing in Port Harcourt, Facility Revamping Manager of MG VOWGAS, Mr Chukwudumeme Stephen, explained that by providing heat treatment for gas turbine equipments used by Gencos, it is saving Nigerians from the possible electricity downtime they otherwise would have experienced if these equipments were to be taken outside the country for heat treatment.
“Recently Geregu Power plant approached us. They are doing maintenance on their turbines. The mixing chamber on one of the turbines and the inner casing made of inconel, a very hard material required to be heat treated. With our 200 ton heat furnace, we slowly heated these materials to a temperature of about 1170 degrees, did the soaking, and gradually did the controlled cooling.
“This basically helped to bring back life to these equipments. These turbines are like jet engines once you start them up, for the next six months or more they will keep running, so from time to time it’s required to do these maintenance. They approached us being those who have this capacity, to do the heat treatment in Nigeria. We were able to help them achieve this.
“If these maintenance are not done, they can lead to what we have been hearing about grid collapse and blackouts. At that point, they will need to do a total overhaul for something that preventive maintenance would have taken care of.
“Geregu power plant is one of the plant that is supporting Nigeria in terms of electricity generation and transmission to the grid. Of recent, we heard about the grid failures and the power issues we are having where we are not able to generate what we need. So we coming in, helps to maintain the life of this plant and ensure some steady amount of power supply in term of the ones we generate and are able to distribute.
“Without us, and our capacity at this time, they would have had to dismantle the equipment and pack it for shipping outside the country. I remember the last project that was done in Nigeria, the heat treatment was taken to South Korea. Imagine preparing the equipment and doing the documents for that journey. Because the journey is by sea freight, it is going to take months to get there and months to get back. Double transit time. Plus the cost of shipping. So we are saving these power plants cost and we are also saving time. Without these equipments the turbines cannot function. So we are cutting down drastically the downtime Nigerians would have to experience whenever these maintenance are due.” He said