The Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari on Monday, said $ 1.1 billion has so far been released to finance the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline project.
This was even as he stated that the project which is expected to gulp a total of $ 2.8 billion will support independent power plants with a total of 3,650 Megawatts.
Kyari made the disclosure during an inspection tour of one of the AKKGasPipeline project sites in Ahoko, Kogi State, saying the project is nearly at 70 percent completion.
He said funding for the project has continued despite the absence of third-party financing.
“It has immense value for Nigeria & its socio-economic growth. The project has not stopped for one day. We have continued to fund it despite the absence of third-party financing.
“As we speak now, we don’t owe a dollar to our contractors today. We paid all their invoices. There are over 30 active sites today in this project, and we are very hopeful that we will deliver this project,” he said.
He further disclosed that the pipeline has the capacity to transport 2 billion Standard Cubic Feet of Natural Gas Per day to Three proposed Independent Power Plants in Abuja, Kaduna, Kano and other Gas-Based Industries as well as other identified and proposed commercial off-takers along the entire pipeline route.
Kyari emphasized the project has the potential to improve the nation’s power generation capacity and the economy as a whole through Industrialization as well as other economic uses.
In a breakdown, he said for Abuja and Ka o, the project will support generation with 1,350MWs respectively while contributing 950MWs to Kaduna.
He stressed that the AKK gas pipeline and stations project will further deepen the integration of the Northern with the Niger Delta, Eastern and Western regions of the Country.
While giving further updates about the project, he said the overall engineering design for the linear section of the two segments of the project is at 93.48percent with the overall procurement for the linear section for the two segments is at 88 percent.
Also, he said 94% of the total line pipes have been manufactured and 90% already in-country.
“Construction activities on both segments are ongoing. We have completed 400km of the linear section/mainline welding, representing 68% of ROW from Ajaokuta in Kogi state to Kano.
“Also, on-going are several special constructions like Direct Pipe Installation (DPI) across the River Niger in Kogi state and other Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) across River Robo, Pai and Shika River in Zaria, Kaduna State.
“Several back-end activities have commenced including field joint coating, trenching and lowering, temporary cathodic protection and talks of pre-commissioning of some sections have equally commenced,” he added.
