Barely six months to expected completion of the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) pipeline project, indications emerged yesterday that the delivery of the project may remain elusive despite heightened momentum for Nigeria to export gas to Europe.
Funding challenges, it was also gathered, may further frustrate the completion of the project, especially with the withdrawal of interest by China to finance the 614km pipeline network. in the section spanning Abuja to Kano as terrorists continue their onslaught on life and property in the area.
yesterday stakeholders, were uncertain of the future of the project, insisting that its failure to keep to schedule may further worsen the search for new lenders by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), even as energy transition has already tightened financial opportunities for fossil fuel projects.
They, however, saw economic sense and a need for the Federal Government to take serious, the interest being expressed by some European countries to make Nigeria an alternative gas supplier given the disruption the Russia-Ukraine war has caused to the global energy market.
Recall that the AKK has been in the plan for decades with tender issued by NNPC in July 2013 and approval granted by the Federal Executive Council in December 2017, the construction only commenced in July 2020 to last for 24 months.
Going by promises, the project, which intended to establish a connection between pipeline networks in the eastern, western and northern regions as the Trans Nigeria Gas Pipeline, should have been ready by end of last month.
While China Export and Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) had agreed to fund 85 per cent of the project amounting to $2,591,849,049.19, the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC) of NNPC was to provide equity financing of $434 million (15 per cent).
