Deployment of pipes to construction site of $2.8 billion gas project excites NNPC

Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mele Kyari, has expressed delight over the movement of pipes from Warri to Itakpe for the implementation of the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano Gas Pipeline project.

The construction works on the 40-inch x 614-kilometres AKK Gas Pipeline Project, which was conceptualised as an integral part of the Nigerian Gas Master Plan and approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2008 was flagged off by President Muhammadu Buhari on June 30, 2020.

Expected to gulp about $2.8bn, Kyari said the project upon completion, will boost growth and revive moribund industries in Nigeria.

Expressing excitement over the movement of the pipes, Kyari tweeted: “We congratulate our team on the arrival at 10.25 pm 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 that the result would be more industrial growth, more creation of jobs, while power would be delivered to many moribund industries.

The NNPC boss said, “This is the year of gas. It means that we will focus on gas, to deliver gas into the domestic market. The OB3 and the expansion of the Lagos Escravos Pipeline System 2, so that it can extend all the way to West Africa and potentially to Morocco at the end of the tunnel, and the combination of this with the delivery of the AKK.

“We will have a trans-Nigerian pipeline in place, and this will enable increased supply of gas into the network such that consumers in the East and in the West and in the West African sub-region and across the transnational pipeline into the North of the country will be energized.

“And the result will be more industrial growth, more jobs will be created, power will be delivered to many moribund industries and, ultimately, it will bring in the required development that our country needs to have from our gas resources.”