LAGOS, Nigeria (VOICE OF NAIJA)-The Minister of Transport Sa’idu Alkali has revealed that the Federal Government has started converting railway locomotive engines from diesel to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
The minister made this announcement during a recent inspection of the retrofitting exercise at the Idu train station in Abuja.
After the inspection, Alkali explained to journalists that the conversion process is at an advanced stage.
He noted that while the engines were initially designed to run on diesel, they will now be modified to use both diesel and CNG, with a primary focus on gas.
He clarified that upon completion, the engine would operate on a mixture of 70 percent gas and 30 percent diesel.
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He said, “We started in the last one month. Nigeria is the first African country to convert diesel engines to gas. The engine will work 30 per cent on diesel and 70 per cent on gas. At the time you want to start the locomotive, you use diesel, but after starting it, you switch to gas, and then it will keep on moving.
“We have interacted with the engineers and the process is at an advanced stage and we are going to test-run the engine and then determine when we will start rolling out the CNG locomotives.”
Speaking on the benefits, he noted, “We will bring down the cost of maintenance to about 60 to 70 per cent. We will control emissions because once the locomotive is moved to gas, we are not going to have any carbon emissions.”
According to the minister the conversion process will initially focus on the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor due to the proximity of the conversion workshop in Abuja.
Alkali promised that the program would expand to other rail corridors across the country once the initial phase is completed.
“We want to start with Kaduna, Abuja, because the workshop is in Abuja here once we finish the retrofitting, we will then continue with all the remaining corridors.”
The Federal Government’s move to adopt CNG is part of its broader strategy to use gas as a transition fuel in its effort to achieve zero emissions by 2050.