Innovative technology provider Wärtsilä has signed a ten-year operations and maintenance (O&M) agreement for a captive power plant to provide energy for a Nigerian cement production facility.

The new cement plant is owned by components manufacturer and metal fabrication company Mangal Industries and will be located in Kogi state, Nigeria. The order was booked by Wärtsilä in the second quarter of 2024.

The power plant is critical to the facility’s cement production as the site is remotely located and has limited access to the electricity grid. It operates with five Wärtsilä 34DF dual-fuel engines delivering an output of 50 MW.

The O&M agreement is designed to ensure that the facility can reliably maintain its cement production target of 3-million metric tonnes a year.

“We are reliant on the power plant for our operations. This is why we have opted to take advantage of Wärtsilä’s depth of experience and know-how to run and maintain the power plant,” explains Mangal Industries MD Fahad Mangal.

Mangal notes that the agreement will not only provide the power reliability that the facility needs, but also gives the company cost predictability.

The ten-year agreement will start immediately once the facility starts operations in the second quarter of 2024, and will initially run on liquid fuel. The facility will switch to natural gas operation once the natural gas pipeline is commissioned.

The power plant’s dual-fuel engines can be operated both on liquid fuel and natural gas and can possibly be converted to operate with future low- or zero-carbon fuels when they become available.

“Wärtsilä now has more than 400 MW of installed capacity for the cement industry in Nigeria, and we are operating three captive power plants in three different states,” comments Wärtsilä Energy operations Africa director Patrick Borstner.

He explains that the successful track record clearly indicates the company’s capabilities, highlighting the added value it can deliver to customers through its experience and expertise in supporting customers’ operations.

With Nigeria’s increasing demand for cement for its many infrastructure projects, and the gap in domestic supply, this new plant will allow Mangal Industries to address this issue.