Lafarge Africa to supply Nigerian electricity grid

Lafarge Africa said on Friday it had applied to Nigeria's energy regulator for a licence  to generate 260MW of electricity to supply to the country's grid.

Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) is licensing 'embedded power companies'  to try to end electricity shortages. Embedded power companies are not primarily power generating groups, but those which generate extra power from their operations and can then sell the surplus to the grid or distribution companies.

Dangote is also in discussions with NERC to sell excess electricity generated from its cement plant to the grid, a source at the NERC told Reuters.

Lafarge Africa, Wartsila and the World Bank's IFC agreed in September to build a 220MW gas-fired power plant in the country to boost electricity supplies, at a cost of US$400m.

Nigeria broke up the government's monopoly on power generation and distribution two years ago by privatising the industry to try to attract foreign investors. However, power generation has stagnated at about half of total capacity.