Page 6 - AfrOil Week 29 2021

AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil

Abuja reportedly seeking $1bn

in new funding for AKK pipeline

NIGERIA NIGERIA’S federal government is looking for a negotiations with the Chinese lenders. “There’s
new source of funding so that Nigerian National no cause for alarm,” a spokesman for the com-
Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) can continue work on pany told Reuters.
the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) natural gas The AKK pipeline will pump gas from fields
pipeline project. in the southern part of the country to new
State-controlled NNPC had previously domestic customers, including thermal power
arranged to cover most of the costs of the plants (TPPs) with a combined generating
$2.8bn project with $1.8bn worth of loans from capacity of 3,600 MW and petrochemical pro-
the Bank of China (BOC) and China Export & ducers that use gas as feedstock. As such, it is a
Credit Insurance Corp. (Sinosure). However, key component of the Nigerian government’s
sources close to the matter told the Chinese domestic gasification strategy.
lenders were not disbursing the funds as quickly NNPC and its contractors began building
as anticipated. the pipeline along a 614-km route that runs
More specifically, the sources said, BOC and northward from the left bank of the Niger river
Sinosure have indicated that they are not willing in Kogi State to the capital city of Kano State in
to release funds before the end of the summer, as June 2020. When finished, the pipe will be able
previously agreed. As a result, they said, work on to carry 99.11mn cubic metres per day of gas, or
the pipeline is falling behind schedule. approximately 36.175bn cubic metres per year.
NNPC has responded by seeking to borrow Initially, throughput will amount to around
money from export credit agencies (ECAs) and 56.64 mcm per day, or around 20.67 bcm per
other financial institutions so that it can proceed year. ™
with construction, they stated. They did not
name any potential new lenders.
According to one of the sources, BOC and
Sinosure are delaying the release of loan funds
because of concerns about risk, especially in
light of other Chinese credits offered to Nigeria.
“They are looking at Nigeria as one loan, and
right now they feel they are too exposed,” the
source said.
As of press time, the Reuters report could
not be confirmed. BOC declined to reply to the
news agency’s request for comment, saying it
could not disclose information on specific loan
agreements, while Sinosure and Nigerian gov-
ernment agencies did not respond to inquiries.
For its part, NNPC declined to comment
directly but stated that it was continuing The AKK gas pipeline will be 614 km long (Image: Nigeria Electricity Hub)

URC carries out trial shipment

of fuel across Lake Victoria

UGANDA UGANDA Railways Corp. (URC) completed a that his company had received 500,000 litres of
trial shipment of petroleum products via Lake fuel in the trial shipment. The petroleum prod-
Victoria last week, marking the first use of the ucts were delivered to Dar es Salaam, the largest
route in 16 years. city in Tanzania, and then transported by rail to
Stephen Wakasenza, the acting managing Mwanza, a port on Lake Victoria, before being
director of state-owned URC, told Bloomberg moved across the lake to Uganda, he said.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 29 21•July•2021