This news is classified in: Traditional Energy Power Generation
Nov 19, 2019
Wärtsilä, a leading supplier of flexible power plants for the decentralized power generation market, has been awarded an operations and maintenance (O&M) contract for 10 years by Lafarge Cement WAPCO Plc, a major cement manufacturer, to run its cement plant power station in Nigeria. By outsourcing the operations and maintenance to Wärtsilä, the customer can focus on its core business.
The O&M contract, signed in September, calls for Wärtsilä to undertake all aspects of operating and maintaining the on-site power plant, including labour, spare parts, scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, administration, human resource services and training, technical support, logistics management and security.
The power plant, located close to the city of Ewekoro, 65 kilometres north of Lagos,
is currently under construction and is scheduled to be in full commercial operation in January 2011. The 100 MW plant will supply electricity to a new cement works being built. Lafarge Cement WAPCO will double its capacity from two million tonnes to over four million tonnes of cement produced by 2011. The expansion project will further assist the company to meet the local demand of cement in Nigeria.
In announcing this latest order, Denis Pierchon, Regional Sales Manager for Africa, Wärtsilä Services, commented: “Wärtsilä has worked closely with the Lafarge group for several years, and has supplied the company with other power plants in Nigeria and Bangladesh. Lafarge trusts our ability and expertise in not only supplying, but also in operating power plants and optimizing their efficiency. The customer benefits by having fixed budgeted costs for the running of the power plant throughout the contractual period.”
“The fuel flexibility of the Wärtsilä engines is an important element in providing heavy industrial processes with a low cost and reliable power supply,” Mr Pierchon continues.
The power plant is a turnkey project by Wärtsilä, and will be powered by six Wärtsilä 18V50DF engines that can operate on either heavy fuel oil, light fuel oil, or gas. When operational, the Ewekoro power plant will, together with other plants already delivered by Wärtsilä, bring the total combined generating capacity supplied by Wärtsilä to Nigeria to approximately 400 MWe. Wärtsilä has O&M contracts for some 150 MW of this generating capacity.