FG to save over 60% of diesel cost from train engine retrofitting

The Federal Government has said that about 60 percent cost of diesel was being saved from the retrofitting of the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) locomotive engines.

Sa’id Alkali, Minister of Transportation, speaking on Thursday, while inspecting the converted train in Abuja, explained that the milestone achieved in the conversion of NRC locomotives to run on diesel/LNG will further save the cost of running the commercial trains.

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“What we are doing is cutting costs. When you look at the 70 percent component of the LNG, as against the 70 percent that was used on diesel, certainly the cost of using LNG will be drastically reduced to about 60 percent,” Alkali stated.

The retrofitting is achieved with a 30 percent ratio of diesel and 70 percent of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) usage.

The minister further explained that the locomotives were using 100 percent diesel, but with the retrofitting, it is now going to use 70 percent LNG and 30 percent diesel.

“By the time all our locomotives are retrofitted, certainly the cost of transportation must drop drastically,” he stated

Alkali, however, dismissed the possibility of the retrofitted locomotives running 100 percent on LNG, stating that “you can’t convert to LNG 100 percent because it is a heavy engine. Normally, combustion is done with smaller engines like generators and cars. But these locomotives were manufactured on diesel and it is not possible technically to convert them to CNG or LNG 100 percent.”

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Recall that the Federal Government in June announced plans to reduce the operational costs of locomotives by embarking on retrofitting the Nigerian Railway Corporations’ locomotives to dual-retrofit engines, which can now use gas.

The minister visited the NRC’s locomotive workshop, Idu, Abuja, to assess the retrofitting exercise.

He also said that the process would begin with the Abuja-Kaduna rail corridor, given that the workshop for the retrofitting was in Abuja, and would thereafter, move to all other rail corridors.