Page 7 - AfrOil Week 15 2021

AfrOil PIPELINES & TRANSPORT AfrOil

The Sangomar block holds about 645mn barrels of oil equivalent (Image: FAR Ltd)
In a Twitter post, he congratulated NNPC for its but initially it will pump gas from fields in the
inauguration of the new route, saying that the southern part of the country to domestic cus-
use of rail lines was not only cheaper and safer tomers, including thermal power plants (TPPs)
than road transport but would also save wear and petrochemical producers.
and tear on Nigeria’s road network. “The infra- NNPC and its contractors are building the
structure revolution is paying up,” he wrote. AKK pipeline along a 614-km route that runs
NNPC indicated in a separate Twitter post northward from the left bank of the Niger river
that it had used 16 railway wagons owned by in Kogi State to the capital city of Kano State.
Nigerian Railway Corp. (NRC), another state- When finished, the pipe will be able to carry
owned company, to carry out the delivery. It 99.11mn cubic metres per day of gas, or approx-
noted that the shipment consisted of 96 sec- imately 36.175bn cubic metres per year. Initially,
tions of pipe and said it would have had to use throughput will amount to around 56.64 mcm
32 trucks to transport that many pipes by road. per day, or around 20.67 bcm per year.
The NOC also described the opening of the The cost of construction is expected to reach
new rail route as a “major boost” to the AKK $2.8bn. NNPC has arranged to finance 85% of
pipeline project. this sum with a loan facility from China Export
The link will eventually serve as the first sec- & Credit Insurance Corporation (Sinosure) that
tion of the Trans-Nigeria Gas Pipeline (TNGP), is due to be repaid over a period of 12 years. ™

NSML says Nigeria should establish

dry-docking facilities for NLNG tankers

NIGERIA NLNG Ship Management Ltd (NSML), which handle any of our LNG vessels,” he commented.
provides marine transport management ser- “I am not saying there are no dry-docking facili-
vices for the Nigeria LNG (NLNG) consortium, ties in Nigeria. But if you understand the nature
has cast a spotlight on Nigeria’s lack of domestic and size of an LNG vessel, then we will all know
dry-docking capacity. that there is nowhere in Nigeria that such vessels
Abdul-Kadir Ahmed, the managing director can be dry-docked as at today.”
of NSML, noted earlier this week that none of According to standards set by the Inter-
the country’s dry-docking facilities were cur- national Maritime Organisation (IMO),
rently capable of servicing his company’s fleet, commercial ships cannot retain their safety
which consists of 11 LNG tankers and one LPG classification or insurance cover unless they
tanker. NSML would prefer to use Nigerian undergo dry-docking at least once every three
shipyards for dry-docking services, but has had years, he noted. At current international rates,
no choice but to use foreign shipyards instead, the cost of dry-docking services typically
he was quoted as saying by The Sun. amounts to $300,000-500,000, he said. (This
“I don’t want to sound critical but realistic. is equivalent to $3.6-5.0mn for NSML’s entire
There is currently no facility in Nigeria that can tanker fleet.)

Week 15 14•April•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7