As debts continue to pile up, the Nigerian Government has deemed it necessary to secure another set of Chinese Loans meant to facilitate ongoing work on the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano, AKK gas pipeline project.
This time, the Muhammadu Buhari-led Administration hopes to obtain one billion dollars from the Chinese Government.
Overall, the budgeted money for the AKK project is two-point-eight-billion dollars ($2.8 billion). Thus far, work on the gas pipeline has been financed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, NNPC
Nevertheless, NNPC would cover 15% of the project’s cost ($2.8 billion), as Reuters reported some delays with the release of money by the Chinese lender.
The big money lenders are the Bank of China and Sinosure. Also, from the same report, it was gathered that to secure the $1.8bn funds, all involved parties are still conversing and reaching agreements.
However, Nigeria agreed that the Chinese loans are to cover most of the project’s cost as the AKK project will play a central role in Nigeria’s plan to extend the role of gas in its economy.
The impact of this project would be in sectors like power generation and heavy industry to petrochemicals, road transport, household cooking, among others.
It’s noteworthy to mention that the project, which commenced one year ago, would carry up to 56mn m3/day of gas from domestic fields to planned power plants in the aforementioned states.