Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has signed the contracts for the engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning and financing for two lots of the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano, AKK, gas pipeline projects.
Recall that in 2008, the Federal Government approved the Nigerian Gas Master Plan, NGMP, to accelerate the development of gas pipeline infrastructure for domestic and export markets.
The first phase of the project was to originate from Ajaokuta, Abuja, Kaduna to terminate at a terminal gas station in Kano.
The contract was signed between NNPC and a consortium of indigenous and Chinese companies under a 100 per cent contractor financing model, which will pave way for the historic ground-breaking of the 40 inch by 614km gas pipeline in weeks to come.
Contract for the AKK pipeline, according to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Ibe Kachikwu, has lasted over 13 years. The AKK section has suffered setbacks due to scarce resources for government to fully finance the project.
The $2.8 billion AKK gas pipeline is among three unique projects – the Egina $15 billion, Bonga $10 billion, expected to generate up to $40bn investments to revive particularly Nigeria’s gas infrastructure.
But the uninterrupted progress recorded so far on the project under NNPC’s current GMD, Maikanti Baru, has continued to draw applause from stakeholders for the efforts at moving Nigeria from being a crude nation into a gas environment.
