The federal government of Nigeria, has started the conversion of railway locomotive engines from diesel to liquified natural gas. This was disclosed by the minister of transportation, Sa’idu Alkali. He made the revelation, during an inspection of the retrofitting exercise at Idu train station in Abuja.
Allali said that the locomotive engines will work on 70 percent diesel and 30 percent gas, if successful. 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, he explained.
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.
The workshop for the conversion is in Abuja, so the Abuja-Kaduna corridor will take the lead. The development will reduce the cost of maintenance by about 60 to 70 percent and also control emissions, among other benefits.