World Bank: Foreign sponsors driving key projects in Nigeria

The World Bank says projects with foreign sponsors, especially from China, have played an important role in developing sizable infrastructure projects in Nigeria.

This is contained in the bank’s ‘Private Participation in Infrastructure (PPI) 2020 Annual Report’ released on Thursday.

According to the report, Nigeria has managed to report PPI investment commitments for five consecutive years since 2015.

“Sizable 2020 PPI investment commitments in the country were mainly due to a big-ticket natural gas pipeline project,” the report read.

“The US$2.6 billion pipeline will transport up to 3,500 million cubic feet of gas a day from various gas gathering projects in southern Nigeria.

“Projects with foreign sponsors, especially from China, have played an important role in developing sizable infrastructure projects in Nigeria.”

World Bank said the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) pipeline, which is being developed by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to transport natural gas from southern Nigeria to central Nigeria, is among the four natural gas projects worth a total of $6.9 billion in investment commitments in 2020.

It said the $2.8 billion pipeline project represents phase one of the 1,300 kilometer Trans-Nigerian Gas Pipeline (TNGP) project, which is being developed as part of Nigeria’s gas master plan to utilize the country’s surplus gas resources for power generation as well as for consumption by domestic customers.

The report indicated that PPI commitments in 2020 declined in all regions except for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and Middle East and North Africa (MENA).

It also showed that SSA received $6.3 billion across 24 projects, marking a 7 percent increase in investment levels from 2019 and a 14 percent increase from the five-year average of $5.5 billion.