KWASU partners Chinese investors to establish CNG conversion site

The Kwara State University (KWASU) says it is partnering with two Chinese companies to open a compressed natural gas (CNG) conversion site.

Jimoh Shaykh-Lukman, the KWASU vice-chancellor, spoke during a news conference in Ilorin on Friday.

He said the companies are Zhejiang Sinray Electronics Company and Jiaxing Keyuan Electronics Company Limited.

Shaykh-Lukman said the partnership is for the company to supply kits for the CNG conversion to avoid the use of substandard products that could cause an explosion.

He said the conversion would be done on a large scale for people to key into the initiative and save money.

The vice chancellor said the institution had worked towards reducing carbon emissions and ensuring a clean and green environment.

He revealed that KWASU engineers had successfully converted four fuel vehicles to electric and one to CNG.

“When we converted our first two vehicles to electronic, we approached Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq, he was happy and supported us,” the VC said.

“Through his recommendations, the ministry of business innovation and technology has given us three vehicles to convert to electric and we have successfully converted two.

“The governor also facilitated our taking over 22 vehicles from Kwara Express Transport firm to convert and we have started working on them.

“We just finished the conversion of one vehicle to CNG to use both petrol and gas. So, we are not just crashing into conversion, we have started it for a while now and we have seen the results already.”

Abdulazeez Akande, the chief technologist at KWASU’s electrical/computer engineering department, said the conversion was a renewable form of energy to address the issue of carbon emission.

“We all know that there is depletion in the ozone layer due to the carbon emissions from vehicles.

“And unfortunately, the other challenge is the price of petrol that has skyrocketed which has forced people to park their vehicles.

“This CNG is an alternative to reduce our running costs on fuel because there is close to 80 per cent savings when using CNG compared to fuel.

“While the electric vehicle on the other hand is much better, it is just that it is a bit expensive to convert compared to CNG.”

The chief technologist said one kg of CNG could cover about 13 kilometres, which was more economical when compared to petrol.

The federal government has been advocating the adoption of CNG-powered vehicles to weather the impact of petrol price hikes across the country.

On October 7, it launched a portal to provide youths with access to CNG-powered tricycles.

The federal government also introduced a scheme allowing users to convert their petrol vehicles to CNG and pay later.

On October 16, the finance ministry partnered with private stakeholders to give loans to Nigerians for CNG conversion projects.