He said this at a media briefing on the current challenges of power supply in the country.
The minister, who decried the spate of gas pipeline vandalism in the country, said power generation had dropped to about 3,200MW from a little above 4,000MW as a result of sabotage.
"The recent dip in power supply has been due mainly to inadequate gas supply to thermal power plants,'' he said.
He explained that about 2,300MW had been lost in the past few months due to the vandalism of five different gas pipelines that supply power to the national grid.
According to him, the affected pipelines include the Escravos-Lagos Gas Pipeline System with a generation capacity of 800MW (mega watts) and the Trans-Forcados pipeline with capacity of 800MW.
He said the Trans-Niger pipeline with capacity of 500MW, the Alakiri-Onne gas pipeline and Chevron gas plant with capacity of 2,672 MW were also affected.
He said the damage to some transmission lines and towers of the Transmission Company of Nigeria had also adversely affected power situation in the country.
"Other factors that recently impacted on service delivery in the sector include loss of transmission lines and substations across the country.
"You are aware of the collapse of 12 towers on the Sapele/Delta 330KV transmission line that occurred on March 9, thus constraining evacuation of power from the Delta power plant,
"The other incident includes the fire accident at Osogbo in which a 150MVA transformer was completely lost.
"The Federal Government, in collaboration with stakeholders in the sector, has commenced rehabilitation of the affected pipelines and transmission infrastructure,'' he said.
He noted that President Goodluck Jonathan, recently pledged 1 billion dollars to
address pipeline vandalism and crude oil theft.
On hydropower dams, the minister said the current low water level had greatly affected the use of the dams.
He gave the assurance that rehabilitation work was ongoing at the Kainji and Shiroro dams to upgrade them.
Nebo apologised to Nigerians for the inconveniences the epileptic power situation had caused and called on stakeholders to join government in transforming the sector.
"I wish to apologise to our valued customers for the difficulties we are all going through, particularly at this time of the year.
"We also wish to use this opportunity to call on members of the press and the general public to join the fight against acts of vandalism,'' he said.
Source: NAN
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