By Teddy Nwanunobi
Excited Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari, has declared that Nigeria’s “infrastructure revolution is paying up”.
Kyari’s excitement followed the successful delivery of 96 pipes from Warri, Delta State to Itakpe in Kogi State at the weekend by a Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC)-operated train.
The delivery of the 32-trailer load of pipes was a major boost to the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project – the first the project has received since it took off last year.
Kyari, who expressed excitement over the development, noted that it will now cost less to deliver the materials.
“We congratulate our team on the arrival at 10.25pm 8.4.2021 of AKK gas project line pipes by rail from Warri to Itakpe – less cost, faster delivery time, safer, protecting our roads and more. The infrastructure revolution is paying up,” he stated on his personal Twitter handle.
The project is a 614-kilometre-long pipeline that is being developed by the NNPC to transport natural gas from southern Nigeria to central Nigeria, and thereafter outside the country.
On completion, the AKK pipeline is expected to transport about 3,500 million cubic feet (mcf) of gas a day from various gas gathering projects in southern Nigeria to be used in the north.
The rail line from Warri, passing through Itakpe, Ajaokuta and Agbor, has six stations along the route, and was initially built to ensure steel products and raw materials transportation from the Delta Steel Company (DSC) which is now comatose.
Last Friday, April 9, Valuechain had reported that the haulage of line pipes from Warri, Delta State in Southern Nigeria to Itakpe, Kogi State in North-Central Nigeria had begun by the NRC.
The NNPC, while describing the movement as “epoch-making” and a major boost, stated that the 96 pipes carried by rail at once were equivalent to 32 trailers, if the haulage was done by road.
“A major boost in the delivery of #AKKGasProject as NRC train finally commenced epoch-making haulage of line pipes from Warri to Itakpe. This locomotive, which began journey @ 11.05am on 8th Apr 2021, carried 96 pipes at once, an equivalent of 32 trailers on the road! #DecadeOfGas,” NNPC tweeted last Friday.
Valuechain reports that the pipeline project, which will run from Ajaokuta in Kogi State to Kano in Nigeria, forms phase one of the Trans-Nigeria Gas Pipeline (TNGP) project.