Nigeria’s international bilateral electricity customers, including entities in Benin Republic and Togo, owe $5.79m for energy consumed in the second quarter of 2024, according to the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC).
This was revealed in NERC’s latest second-quarter 2024 report.Out of the $15.60m billed by Nigeria’s market operator between April and June 2024, the international customers remitted $9.81m. The customers include Para-SBEE in Benin Republic, which paid $1.23m; Transcorp-SBEE in Benin Republic, which fully paid its $4.25m invoice; Mainstream-NIGELEC in Togo, which paid $1.09m out of $3.59m; and Odukpani-CEET in Togo, which did not make any remittance on its $3.47m bill.
The report also highlighted that in the first quarter of 2024, none of the four international bilateral customers made payments against the cumulative invoice of $14.19m issued by the market operator. However, by the second quarter, some bilateral customers, both domestic and international, began paying for previous outstanding invoices.“Cumulatively, the international bilateral customers paid a total of $16.65m; Transcorp-SBEE and Mainstream-NIGELEC have made payments towards all outstanding invoices from previous quarters,” the NERC report stated.The four international bilateral customers paid $9.81m against the cumulative $15.60m billed for Q2 2024, achieving a remittance performance of 62.88%, according to the report.
Domestically, bilateral customers made payments totaling N1.30bn against the N1.99bn billed in the second quarter of 2024, translating to a remittance performance of 65.07%. The market operator also received N1.30bn from domestic bilateral customers for outstanding invoices from previous quarters.In terms of overall revenue collection, Nigeria’s distribution companies (Discos) collected N431.16bn out of the N543.64bn billed to customers in the second quarter of 2024, representing a collection efficiency of 79.31%. This marks a slight improvement from the first quarter of 2024, where the collection efficiency was 79.11%, with N291.62bn collected out of N368.65bn billed.The NERC report underscores ongoing challenges in achieving full remittance from both international and domestic customers for energy consumption.
