$2.8bn Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline project at 43 percent completion — Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday said the $2.8billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano AKK natural gas pipeline project, is currently at 43 per cent completion.

The project, when completed, is expected to transport up to 3500 million cubic feet of gas daily from various gas gathering projects, help to generate 3.6 gigawatts of power and support gas-based industries along the route.

Buhari spoke in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the 6th edition of the Nigeria International Energy Summit (N. I. E. S.) theme: Global perspectives for a sustainable future”.

He said: “At present, the 614-kilometre gas pipeline is 43 per cent completed.”

The President who spoke through the Secretary General of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha also stressed the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) remains his administration’s single biggest achievement in the energy sector.

He said the passage of the two decades Bill was revolutionary as,” for decades, we were told that because of the various vested interests, it would be near impossible to pass the Bill. But we made it happen”.

According to him, after the enactment of the Act, his administration wasted no time in implementing some critical aspects of the provisions of the Act.

“We did not rest on our oars. With the enactment of that, we moved swiftly into action scrapping the existing agencies or replacing them with new regulators.

“To this end, existing agencies were scrapped and replaced with new regulators; the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) while the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was transformed into a Limited Liability Company-the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) which is poised to become the biggest, most capitalized and most profitable company in Africa,” he said.

Earlier, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL), Mele Kyari said the Company is also investing heavily in critical gas infrastructure such as the Ajaokuta-Abuja-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline and the OB3 gas interconnector to support 5 Bscf/d of domestic gas utilization including 5 GW of power generation capacity by developing power plant projects along the AKK pipeline corridor and across the country to complement existing ones.

For the gas export market, he said the ongoing NLNG Train 7 will expand Nigeria’s LNG production capacity to about 30 million tons per annum (30 MTPA).

“This is in addition to the planned Nigerian Morocco and the Trans Sahara Gas Pipeline projects which will supply gas to sub-regional African countries and subsequently Europe,” he said.

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