THE House of Representatives has asked the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, formerly Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, to provide details of the trans-Saharan pipeline construction project valued at $12bn.
The House specifically urged the NNPC to provide information regarding the implementation, funds utilisation and status of the project, while asking the company to review the National Gas Master Plan relating to the project “to conform with the variables of today’s global economy.”
Also, the House mandated its Committee on Gas Resources to ensure compliance with the resolutions and report back within four weeks for further legislative action.
These resolutions were sequel to the unanimous adoption of the motion moved on Wednesday by a member of the House, Ahmed Munir, titled, ‘Urgent need to address the prolonged construction of the Trans Saharan Natural Gas Pipeline Project’.
Munir recalled that the NNPC and the Algerian National Oil and Gas Company (Sonatrach), on 14 January 2002, signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a $12bn, 4,128km-natural gas pipeline project with a projected annual capacity of 30 billion cubic meters that would extend gas supply to Europe.
The lawmaker also recalled that NNPC and Sonatrach, in June 2005, signed a contract with Penspen Limited for a feasibility study of the project, which was completed in September 2006, and the pipeline was discovered to be technically and economically feasible and reliable.
According to him, this in turn led to the inter-governmental agreement on the pipeline signed by the energy ministers of Nigeria, Niger and Algeria on July 3, 2009, in Abuja.
Munir said, “The House is concerned that in 2013, the Federal Government approved a budget of $400m for commencement of the project originally scheduled to be operational by 2020 with no commensurate progress made to date.
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