In Nigeria: Stakeholders Demand Early Delivery Of AKK Gas Pipeline Project.

Stakeholders in the Nation’s economy have called for an urgent realisation of the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline project to ensure rapid industrial development and economic diversification.

Panelists drawn from the petroleum industry, academia, organised private sector and regulatory agencies who participated in a webinar hosted by Valuechain Magazine made this known in a press release and made available to Outlook media said that the federal government to expedite the realisation of the project.

Mr Omotowa who pointed out economic values of the pipeline said that ,it is part of the national gas infrastructure blueprint designed to deepen the domestic, regional, continental market for Nigerian gas.

The rector, Kaduna Polytechnic, Idris Bugaje, said the AKK project should be completed in 18 months to pave the way for the activation of the second phase of the Trans-Nigeria gas pipeline which would run from Eastern Niger Delta through South-East and Middle Belt to the North-East.

He noted that the speedy delivery of the project would compensate for its late conceptualisation.

Bugaje lamented that the AKK gas pipeline was coming 25 years late after numerous textile, manufacturing, and agricultural enterprises in the northern parts of the country had collapsed under costly, unstable and inefficient industrial fuel.

Managing Director of the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), a unit of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Seyi Omotowa, gave assurances that the project would be realized in good time, adding that a presidential inter-agency project management team is working with other stakeholders to overcome all failure factors.

He declared that the AKK pipeline is an NNPC project while the project loan is hedged against the corporation’s revenue, with government providing the required sovereign guarantee.

He said the funding model, quality and pedigree of contractors, structures for transparence and accountability, as well as improved security arrangement would enable the AKK project management team overcome all foreseeable challenges and deliver the project in time.(outlook media).