The Minister of Transportation Sa’idu Alkali said that the government has begun the conversion of railway locomotive engines from diesel to Compressed Natural Gas CNG).
The Minister who disclosed this during an inspection of the retrofitting exercise at Idu train station in Abuja disclosed that if successful the locomotive engines will work on 70 percent diesel and 30 percent gas.
He explained that the process is currently at an advanced stage as the engine is designed as an alternative to the diesel used to power the engine after which it is switched to gas.
Alkali said “We started in the last one month, Nigeria is the first African country to convert a diesel engine to gas. The engine will work 70 percent on diesel and 30 percent on gas.
“so far we have interacted with the engineers and the process is at an advanced stage and we are going to test run the engine tomorrow and then determine when we will that rolling out the CNG locomotives,” he stated.
Speaking on the benefits, Alkali said it will bring down the cost of maintenance by about 60 to 70 percent and also control emissions.
He maintained that the government is beginning with Abuja-Kaduna railway corridor because the workshop for the conversion is in Abuja.
