Author: Businessam Staff

A group of international tech firms and venture capitalists injected almost £1 billion ($1.4 billion) into the U.K.’s artificial intelligence (AI) industry on Thursday.

The deal was backed by Japanese venture capital firm Global Brain, Canadian venture capital firm Chrysalix, U.K. automaker Rolls-Royce, the British government, and other investors.

The investment will be used to fund new specialist AI qualifications and computer science teachers, to tackle a skills shortage in the sector. Theresa May’s government has been driving an industrial strategy to tap into the growing industry, which Gartner estimates will be worth more than $3.9 trillion in business value by 2022.

“Artificial intelligence provides limitless opportunities to develop new, efficient and accessible products and services which transform the way we live and work,” Greg Clark, U.K. business, and energy secretary said in a statement.

“Today’s new deal with industry will ensure we have the right investment, infrastructure, and highly-skilled workforce to establish the U.K. as a driving force in the development and commercial use of artificial intelligence technologies.”

Britain’s nascent AI sector has seen increasing interest from overseas investors. Last week, London-based BenevolentAI raised $115 million from new investors in the U.S. and existing investors, including the U.K.’s Woodford Investment Management.

But critics have warned that the rapid development of AI could come with consequences. On Wednesday, U.S. policy think tank the Rand Corporation warned that the use of AI in a military scenario could potentially lead to a nuclear war by 2040. But the organization also said that AI could have a positive impact and improve decision-making to avert potential disasters.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has been a notable opponent of the potential misuse of AI, and has said it could be the cause of a third world war and create an “immortal dictator.”

The British government said that the money raised also would be used to create a data ethics center to ensure the ethical development of AI.

“As with all innovation, there is also the potential for misuse which puts the whole sector under scrutiny and undermines public confidence,” Clark said.

The U.K. is not the only country to have noticed the importance of the sector. China is ploughing billions into its own AI industry and wants it to be worth 1 trillion yuan ($158 billion) by 2030, while Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that whichever nation leads the technology “will become the ruler of the world.”

Meanwhile, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union, said Wednesday that it will need to invest 20 billion euros ($24 billion) in AI research by 2020.

Emerging market currencies, which were exposed to downside risks this week after the U.S 10-year Treasury bond yield punched above 3 percent, boosted the dollar weeklong to Thursday. This is just as the Euro softens ahead of ECB decision.

With the dollar likely to remain supported by speculation of higher U.S interest rates, EM currencies, including the naira, could be exposed to further losses, according to FXTM Research analysts.

They noted that the Nigeria naira slightly felt the heat, weakening against the dollar at the investor’s window and parallel market at N363 as of Thursday, April 26, 2018.

There is equally a growing air of anticipation across financial markets ahead of the European Central Bank rate decision and press conference later in the day from Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank.

Amid trade tensions across the globe and signs of a slowdown in the Eurozone, most economists expect the ECB to keep rates on hold. Draghi had recently warned in Washington that rising protectionism might already be hurting business and consumer sentiment.

“The main focus and potential action by investors will probably revolve around Draghi’s post-meeting press conference,” they said.

“While Draghi is likely to reiterate the message he delivered during March’s policy meeting when the ECB dropped its easing bias, this could be presented with dovish touch.

“With Eurozone economic data disappointing in recent months, inflation still below the golden 2 percent target and lingering trade tensions weighing on sentiment, doves could steal the show today, Thursday,” they highlighted.

According to them, the key question on the mind of many investors is whether the soft economic data during Q1 will result in the ECB delaying the QE exit decision.

“With speculation rising over the ECB pushing back the taper timeline, it will be interesting to hear Mario Draghi’s thoughts on this topic during his press conference. The Euro remains at risk of extending losses against the Dollar if Draghi strikes a cautious tone.”

They forecast that it is certainly shaping up to be a bearish trading week for the Euro, which has tumbled to levels not seen since the 1 March – below 1.2160.

“Focusing on the technical picture, the EUR/USD is at risk of tumbling lower, if bears are able to maintain control below the 1.2200 level. Previous support around 1.2200 could transform into a dynamic resistance that invites a decline towards 1.2150 and 1.2090.

On commodity, WTI Crude appreciated on Thursday morning, as market expectations over the United States re-imposing sanctions against Iran and a drop in Venezuela’s oil production fuelled fears of supply shortages.

Increasingly, oil bulls tend to remain heavily reliant on geopolitical tensions to sustain the current rally. While further upside could be on the cards in the near term amid OPEC optimism, gains are likely to be capped down the road by soaring production from U.S Shale.

“Taking a look at the technical picture, WTI Crude continues to fulfill the prerequisites of a bullish trend as there have been consistently higher highs and higher lows. WTI has the potential to challenge $70 if prices are able to keep above $67.50. Alternatively, if bulls become exhausted and fail to defend $67.50, the next level of interest will be at $66.00,” the FXTM analysts noted.

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LaLiga, the men’s top professional association football division of the Spanish football league system and AJEAST Nigeria, makers of Big Cola, have signed a strategic regional partnership deal for an intensified engagement with the league’s fan base in the country.

The strategic deal announced Thursday at a press conference in Lagos makes the multinational beverage company the latest regional partner with the league in Nigeria.

The partnership is expected to reinforce both LaLiga and AJEAST’s continued commitment to consumer satisfaction in Nigeria. Moreover, it will enable the beverage company, which is a major stakeholder in the country’s fast-growing consumer goods industry, to offer its customers access to exclusive content related to the Spanish football competition.

In a statement following the signing, Gregory Bolle, LaLiga’s head of global partnership sales, said that “LaLiga loves Africa and Nigeria is a strategic country for us, because of its fans and numerous football talents such as Francis Uzoho (Deportivo de la Coruna) and Oghenekaro Etebo (UD Las Palmas).

LaLiga is proud to kick off this partnership with a leading beverage brand such as Big Cola. This partnership will allow our millions of Nigerian LaLiga fans to further engage with the best league in the world. Through this innovative collaboration with Big Cola, we will prove once again that we are committed to becoming closer than ever to our fantastic Nigerian fans,” he said.

On his part, Theo Williams, country director of AJEAST Nigeria, stated that “We are proud to launch this partnership with LaLiga. This partnership provides us with a remarkable platform to broaden Big Cola’s profile and values while giving us another opening to create distinctive experiences for football fans all over Nigeria.”

Also speaking at the event, Javier Del Rio, LaLiga’s delegate for Nigeria said “This is another major step for LaLiga in the right direction here in Nigeria. Through this partnership with Big Cola, we´ll be able to bring the best League in the world closer to the Nigerian fans and all the young football talents in the country.”

Under this agreement, AJEAST Nigeria will gain access to intellectual property and marketing rights, tickets and hospitality deals, merchandising, rights to digital assets and social media, public viewing events for El Clásico, access to trophy tours and exclusive content from the 20 clubs participating in the Spanish top flight league.

The partnership reaffirms AJEAST’s status as a major player in the development of football in Nigeria, while further illustrating LaLiga’s successful international expansion in Africa to get closer to its Nigerian fans.

The partnership with Big Cola continues LaLiga’s commitment to Nigeria, joining projects already taken up by the LaLiga office in Nigeria, such as the MoU signing with the NPFL, the NPFL All-Star Trip to Spain, the Legacy Sports Partnership, the LaLiga – NPFL coaching seminar for Nigerian youth coaches, the NPFL U-15 tournament, the MoU signing with the NWFL, and the official LaLiga in Naija media event.

Royal Dutch Shell on Thursday announced that its profits rose in the first three months ended 31 March 2018, backed by the recent rise in oil and natural gas prices.

The multinational oil and gas company’s earnings jumped 42 percent with its income attributable to shareholders excluding losses, reaching $5.89 billion in Q1-18, compared to $3.53 billion in the same quarter last year.

Expectations are high for Shell to continue to generate strong profits and cash flow after the Anglo-Dutch company beat larger rival Exxon Mobil on both fronts in 2017 thanks to cost cuts and higher efficiencies.

Similarly, the oil company’s total revenues and other income surged to $91.11 billion between January and March from the prior year’s $73.31 billion.

The world’s top oil companies are expected to generate more cash in 2018 than at any other time this decade after three years of cuts, but boards remain cautious amid uncertainty over near- and long-term prices.

“Shell’s strong earnings this quarter were underpinned by higher oil and gas prices, the continued growth and very good performance of our Integrated Gas business, and improved profitability in our Upstream business,” Ben van Beurden, chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Shell in the fourth quarter scrapped its scrip dividend in a sign that it is confident of being able to maintain around $15 billion in annual dividend payments without resorting to borrowing after a three-year oil price downturn.

It plans to buy back $25 billion of shares by 2020 in order to offset the dilutive effect of the scrip and its $54 billion acquisition of BG Group. Though, time to start the program was not specified.

After falling short of expectations in the previous quarter, Shell’s cash flow from operations in the first three months of 2018 recovered to $9.43 billion, which was still slightly weaker from $9.5 billion a year earlier.

Free cash flow was little changed from a year earlier at $5.178 billion.

Net income attributable to shareholders, based on a current cost of supplies (CCS) and excluding identified items, rose to $5.322 billion, topping a company-provided analysts’ consensus of $5.277 billion.

Production grew by 2 percent to 3.839 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Earnings for the segment almost tripled from a year earlier.

Income from the refining and marketing segment, known as downstream, weakened due to lower refining margins and plant availability.

Gearing, the ratio between debt and Shell’s market capitalisation was slightly lower from the end of 2018 at 24.7 percent by the end of March.

Crude prices inched up Thursday, staying within sight of their highest levels in more than three years, as geopolitical tension in the Middle East and concerns about supply disruptions in key oil-producing nations provided support.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures tacked on 9 cents to $68.14 a barrel by 08:00 GMT. The U.S. benchmark rose to $69.55 last week, the highest since Nov. 28, 2014, according to investing.com.

Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., ticked up 17 cents to $74.18 a barrel. The global benchmark climbed as high as $75.47 earlier this week, a level not seen since Nov. 27, 2014.

Crude prices inched up on Thursday, staying within sight of their highest levels in more than three years, as geopolitical tension in the Middle East and concerns about supply disruptions in key oil-producing nations provided support.

New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures tacked on 9 cents to $68.14 a barrel by 08:00 GMT. The U.S. benchmark rose to $69.55 last week, the highest since Nov. 28, 2014, according to investing.com.

Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., ticked up 17 cents to $74.18 a barrel. The global benchmark climbed as high as $75.47 earlier this week, a level not seen since Nov. 27, 2014.

Expectations that the United States will reinstate sanctions against Iran, a major oil producer and member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has helped push oil prices up in recent sessions.

The Trump administration has until May 12 to decide whether it will extend the sanctions waiver linked to Iran’s nuclear deal, which would likely result in a reduction of its oil exports.

Another bullish factor supporting oil prices has been declining output in Venezuela, OPEC’s biggest producer in Latin America.

Venezuela’s crude production has fallen from almost 2.5 million barrels per day (bpd) in early 2016 to around 1.5 million bpd due to political and economic turmoil.

On Wednesday, oil futures settled modestly higher, bouncing back from earlier weakness that was driven by data showing an unexpectedly weekly climb in U.S. crude supplies.

U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 2.2 million barrels in the week to April 20, to 429.74 million barrels, while domestic output, driven by shale extraction, climbed by 46,000 bpd to 10.59 million bpd.

Only Russia currently produces more, at around 11 million bpd.

Yet, underlying sentiment in the oil market remained positive amid ongoing investor expectations that OPEC-led supply cuts would continue to rid the market of excess supplies.

In other energy trading, gasoline futures were flat at $2.087 a gallon, while heating oil was steady at $2.139 a gallon.

Natural gas futures added 0.2% to $2.813 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day amid expectations for a withdrawal of 12 billion cubic feet.

Over 3 million people are actively using WhatsApp Business, according to Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO.

Zuckerberg revealed this during Facebook’s Q1 2018 earnings call on Wednesday.

It is unclear, according to VentureBeat whether the WhatsApp Business is used by more than 3 million active users on a daily or monthly basis.

Despite a series of scandals in recent weeks that culminated with testimony by Zuckerberg before Congressional committees, Facebook reported $11.97 billion in revenue and $4.98 billion in profit, with 91 percent of ad revenue coming from mobile devices.

WhatsApp Business, a standalone app separate from the other version of WhatsApp used by 1.5 billion people, was launched in January for Android users in five countries including Nigeria.

WhatsApp began to verify business accounts last August, following plans originally announced to bring more businesses to its platform in August 2016.

In each of the past few calls to discuss quarterly earnings with analysts, Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg have emphasized that investment in the company’s chat apps are critical to the years ahead. This quarter was no different.

“Over the next five years we’re focused on building out the business ecosystems around our apps like Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger,” Zuckerberg said Wednesday.

WhatsApp Business is still being rolled out, but conversational commerce through things like payments on Messenger will also be important to the social media giant.

“I think what you’re going to start to see are people interacting with Pages that you follow, Pages on Facebook or Instagram.

“You see content from that Page, and you can click through to a message thread, and then you can either get customer support or complete a transaction or do a follow-on transaction, and that will be very valuable for businesses so we view the payment in that context, not as the goal but as something that’s helping the business and the person succeed at having a transaction or doing what they’re trying to do,” Zuckerberg said.

WhatsApp Business competes with services like Apple’s Business Chat and RCS messaging for Android and Facebook’s own Messenger Platform, chat apps all built around connecting businesses with customers.

Facebook will likely share more next week at F8, its annual developer conference. Much of the agenda for the annual developer conference focuses on chat, messaging, and the Messenger Platform for the deployment of automated bots.

Power plants that balance nuclear and renewable energy could increase revenues from electricity markets and reduce variable operating and maintenance costs, according to Argonne scientists.

Nuclear power plants typically run either at full capacity or not at all. Yet the plants have the technical ability to adjust to the changing demand for power and thus better accommodate sources of renewable energy such as wind or solar power.

Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently explored the benefits of doing just that. If nuclear plants generated power in a more flexible manner, the researchers say, the plants could lower electricity costs for consumers, enable the use of more renewable energy, improve the economics of nuclear energy and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The team explored technical constraints on flexible operations at nuclear power plants and introduced a new way to model how those challenges affect how power systems operate. “Flexible nuclear power operations are a ‘win-win-win,’ lowering power system operating costs, increasing revenues for nuclear plant owners and significantly reducing curtailment of renewable energy,” wrote the team in an Applied Energy article published online on April 24.

Audun Botterud, a principal energy systems engineer in Argonne’s Energy Systems division, is encouraged by how, for the first time, “this research evaluates and demonstrates the potential value of flexible nuclear operations in a realistic power system in the United States challenged by high variability in renewable-energy generation.”

The study helps to dispel long-held views that nuclear power plants must operate in “baseload” mode, producing power at maximum rated capacity whenever they are online. Nuclear plants can even respond dynamically to hourly electricity market prices and second-to-second frequency regulation needs, the team found. Power systems that include renewable energy must be more flexible to balance supply and demand at all times. Nuclear operators in France, Germany and other countries are familiar with this approach, but less so in the United States.

The researchers developed a mathematical representation of the physics-induced operational constraints arising from nuclear reactor dynamics and the fuel irradiation cycle in the Applied Energy article and a companion paper, published in Nuclear Technology. The interdisciplinary team then combined the new approach with power system simulation models to evaluate the overall cost of electricity generation, market prices and resulting revenues for power plants, assuming different levels of nuclear flexibility.

“Nuclear power plants are governed by a different set of principles compared to other generators, and our approach enables the representation of these relationships in the analysis of power systems and electricity markets,” said Francesco Ganda, the principal investigator of the project and a principal nuclear engineer in Argonne’s Nuclear Science and Engineering division.

By being flexible, plant operators can lower overall operating costs in the power system. For example, operators could generate less nuclear power whenever renewable energy is widely available. Nuclear plants could then exploit their spare capacity to sell valuable “operating reserves,” or the ability to quickly change power output to help grid operators rebalance supply and demand when unexpected events occur, such as power plant failures or errors in demand forecasts.

This flexibility could increase the profitability of nuclear plants by increasing revenues from electricity markets and reducing variable operating and maintenance costs. Overall, nuclear plant flexibility can also help integrate more wind and solar resources and reduce production of fossil fuel-fired energy and related carbon dioxide emissions.

Jesse Jenkins, graduate researcher at the MIT Energy Initiative, notes how the researchers’ modeling approach and study “gives us tools to further explore potential benefits of flexible nuclear operations to work in tandem with greater shares of variable sources of renewable power generation on the pathway towards low-carbon electricity supply.”

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Courtesy Phys.org

Revelations of the improperly handled data of 87 million users did nothing to stop Facebook Inc.‘s money machine.

The data-privacy scandal involving Cambridge Analytica broke in mid-March, but the company appeared to shrug off those concerns with huge earnings and revenue beat in the first quarter. In a Wednesday report, Facebook FB posted $4.99 billion in quarterly profits on sales of $11.97 billion, topping analysts’ average estimates of $4.01 billion for net income and $11.41 billion in revenue.

“Despite facing important challenges, our community and business are off to a strong start in 2018,” Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on a conference call Wednesday afternoon. “Over the next three years we’re going to keep building Facebook to not only be a service that people love to use, but also one that’s good for people and good for society.”

Facebook stock gained more than 4% in after-hours trading after the earnings report was released, and was up 7% following its conference call. Before Wednesday’s earnings, Facebook shares had fallen roughly 18% from its February record high, after closing flat at $159. The stock has lost 9.5% this year, as the benchmark S&P 500 index SPX+0.18% has fallen 1.5%.

Insights Daniel, Head of technology research at GBH, Ives wrote in a note to clients late Wednesday that the company’s results were “solid” and heralded the company’s profit and revenue as a “key initial victory” for the stock as investors gauge damage from the Cambridge Analytica fallout.

Facebook added 70 million users in the first quarter, meeting user-growth expectations despite public calls to delete the social-media app. The company now boasts 1.45 billion daily users and 2.2 billion monthly members. The company’s operating expenses came in below consensus expectations, though Zuckerberg has warned they will continue to eat into Facebook’s profits as it adds 20,000 workers to address security and privacy concerns.

According to the earnings release, Facebook increased its workforce by 48% to 27,742, compared with the year-earlier quarter.

David Wehner, Chief Financial Officer broke down a portion of those security and safety costs, telling analysts that the sales and marketing expense growth of 51% compared with the year-earlier quarter was driven by the “community operations investment.” That unit includes some of the money the company is spending on quality and safety initiatives, and Wehner expects the spending to “carry through the year.”

Previously, executives said the costs related to safety and security would be spread across a number of operating-expense line items, including research and development and general administration, but had not given more detail.

Impressions, a key data point in terms of gauging advertiser interest during the quarter, grew by 8% and the price of ads grew by 39%. In the year-earlier period, Facebook grew impressions by 32% and ad prices by 14%. Because Facebook’s ads are in demand, when the social network constricts the supply ad prices typically rise — and should that happen and prices remain constant or fall, it would likely signal a weaker demand from advertisers.

The company’s healthy ad business drew the vast majority of sales, but investors often look to the company’s nascent Messenger and WhatsApp divisions as potentially massive sources of revenue in the future. Zuckerberg said that the company didn’t view those services as means of charging for payments, but that messaging apps “can be a more transactional medium than feed.”

In terms of how that might look in the future, Zuckerberg said, “You can click through or tap through to a message thread, and then you can either get customer support or complete a transaction or do a follow-on transaction. And that will be very valuable for businesses.”

Much of lawmakers’ and the public’s attention has been focused on the Cambridge Analytica scandal that broke on March 17. Zuckerberg said as recently as early April that it has had no material effect on the company’s financial operations — yet.

But the changes the company announced early this year have had much more time to play out. In January, Zuckerberg said the company would give posts and other content from members’ friends and family a higher priority than material produced by third-parties such as news organizations, marketing companies and other for- and nonprofit corporate pages.

On the call Wednesday, at least two analysts asked Facebook executives whether the time spent on the platform had changed because of the changes to the news feed. Executives did not directly answer the question.

In January, Zuckerberg issued a warning to investors: Facebook executives expected “some measures of engagement” to drop and that its 2-billion-and-counting user base would likely spend less time on the platform.

Should antitrust laws be enforced against the tech giants’ monopolies? (2:49)
A handful of tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple – dominate their respective markets, with a growing number of critics arguing they should be broken up or regulated as monopolies. Here’s what you need to know.

When asked about the business impact of the changes at the February Morgan Stanley tech conference in San Francisco, Facebook Chief Financial Officer David Wehner told analysts that spending less time on the platform doesn’t necessarily mean a corresponding decline in revenue.

“The impact of the business is much more muted because we’re still seeing that there’s lots of post engagement,” he said. “So when you’re taking away time from things like passive video, it doesn’t mean you’re not seeing as many posts in news feed…I don’t think the impact on the business is really that profound relative to the impact on time.”

In contrast, Europe’s General Data Protection Regulations, set to take effect May 25, will have an impact on Facebook’s operations. The company expects European monthly and daily active user counts to be flat or down in the second quarter as GDPR takes effect, but isn’t sure about the long-term implications.

Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg told analysts that the entire online advertising industry has to deal with the changes and what the company is concerned with is trends over time.

“We’re going to all know a lot more after we roll out, but the thing that won’t change is that advertisers are going to look at the highest [return on investment] opportunity,” Sandberg said. “And what’s most important in winning budgets is relative performance in the industry.“

Diamond Bank Plc has signed a Share Sale and Purchase Agreement with a member of GFG Alliance, for the disposal of its entire shareholding in its international subsidiary, Diamond Bank, UK Plc.

The disposal is in line with the Bank’s objective of streamlining its operations to focus resources on the significant opportunities in the Nigerian retail banking market.

The transaction follows the bank’s divestment from its West African business, Diamond Bank S.A., which was completed in November 2017.

The Bank and GFG Alliance are committed to, and are pursuing a quick completion of the transaction subject to the approval of the Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority who regulate banking business in the United Kingdom. Commenting on the transaction, Diamond Bank’s CEO Uzoma Dozie said: “Diamond Bank’s strategic objective is to be the fastest growing, and most profitable technology-driven retail banking franchise in Nigeria.

This strategic intent requires the Bank to optimize the use of its resources which means, where necessary, divesting from its non-core assets and focusing on the priority area, namely Nigerian retail banking. In recent years, the Bank has laid the foundation for growth in Nigeria with acquisition of over 15 million customers, many of whom are owning bank accounts for the first time.

The Nigerian market has vast potential due to its strong fundamentals, including millions of people who are either underbanked or unbanked and changing lifestyles that favour the use of mobile devices to complete multiple financial transactions at the consumer’s convenience. This is also underpinned by significant economic potential driven by an entrepreneurial spirit and a growing culture of innovation.

Moreover, by harnessing technology and fostering a digitally led approach, the Bank will have a further positive impact on the overall development of the financial system, and the Nigerian economy in general.” The sale of the international subsidiaries is not expected to cause service disruptions for the Bank’s customers located around the world as they can continue to enjoy enhanced and convenient banking services through the Bank’s digital channels.

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), on Wednesday, urged electricity distribution companies (DisCos) to recapitalize their investment in order to boost their capacity as large volume of power waiting for evacuation is often rejected and was causing high frequency and system collapse.

Smart Omo Omoragbon, TCN’s assistant general manager, operations, made this call during a media tour of all the Ikeja west transmission sub-station, Ipaja-Ayobo, Lagos, where he noted that the transmission company was experiencing increased transmission capacity, due to the fact that government provided increased funding, but distribution capacity was still low in comparison, and that the private investors of the distribution sub-chain should recapitalize to be able to distribute their load allocation.

He said: “They are also improving but it might not also be at the same pace because the federal government is providing our funds. Their problem as far as fund is concern, they also need to recapitalize. Their network needs to be upgraded so that they can deliver energy to the Nigerian people.”

Also speaking with journalists during the tour, Etore Thomas, the deputy director of press, tasked distribution companies on increasing their capacities, saying that they were doing the “needful but they should step up their capacities.”

The team was also at Akamgba sub-station, where Anthony Dim, the assistant general manager of transmission, said there was consistent increase in the capacity, stressing that for the past two years, “we have experienced capacity increase in virtually all the sub-stations.”

Within that period, according to him, two MVAs have been added with 300 MvA on the site, which would be completed before the year ends.

He added that the station has an idle load that was “waiting to be picked up by Eko Distribution Company.

“We are trying to ask them to come here because we have more than enough capacity,” stressing that “Eko must evacuate the load; by the time they are not evacuating we will be reducing generation. For instance, if the generation is high, it can also lead to system collapse.”

“And that is why we cannot guarantee that system collapse is now history. It is a function of the load that is in the system. If the load in the system is not evacuated the frequency will be extraordinarily high and it can lead to system collapse,” he explained

In the Nigeria electricity supply industry, distribution capacity is about 3,000-5,000 megawatts, while the supposed transmission capacity is about 7,000megawatts (MW).