On Friday evening, a sudden interruption in natural gas delivery caused the 188-megawatt Geometric Power Plant in Osisioma, Abia State, to stop generating electricity. This failure left residents across nine local government areas within the Aba Ring-fence Area without power starting at 6:30 p.m. Ugo Opiegbe, the Managing Director of Aba Power, confirmed the blackout and apologized to consumers, explaining that a sharp decline in gas pressure prevented the plant’s turbines from functioning.
While the company did not officially name the supplier, reports point to Heirs Energies, which has provided gas to the facility for three years. An official from the Nigeria Gas Marketing Limited indicated that while gas stocks are sufficient, the plant cannot receive them due to technical limitations in the Heirs Energies’ Associated Gas Gathering infrastructure. Experts like consultant Dike Ejike noted that these problems stem from aging, legacy equipment inherited after OML 17 changed ownership from Shell.
Aba Power has warned that electricity restoration could take longer than 24 hours as repairs continue. The outage has frustrated the local community, which had grown accustomed to improved power reliability since the plant began operations. Observers emphasize that this incident highlights the urgent need to modernize Nigeria’s gas infrastructure to prevent further instability.