The Chief Executive Officer of Oilserv Limited, Emeka Okwuosa on Tuesday revealed that works on the Ob/Ob 3 East-West gas pipeline project being executed by his company has been delayed by the non-delivery of pipes by a contractor. This pipeline is a 120 km, 48” pipeline network. With a capacity to move 2bcf of gas from the east of Nigeria to fire power stations in the West, Kogi and northern axis, it is the biggest pipeline to be constructed in the country. Okwuosa, blames the delay on the failure of another contractor in supplying the pipes needed to carry out the project.

He noted that the project is being executed under the federal government’s Gas Master Plan and was supposed to have been implemented as early as 2006, 2007 and 2008 but did not begin until 2013, as the contract was awarded by the end of 2012. “If the gas master plan was religiously executed, by now we would have finished the other arms. It is a 128-kilometre pipeline and as we speak, the section, which is called Lot A, which is 64 kilometers that we are executing, is already 80 per cent done. As we speak, we have not gotten some of the pipelines. The ones we procured by ourselves, we have already finished laying them. So, again, it is the way it was structured. But I can assure you that serious work is going on there. Before the end of 2016, most of the work would have been done,” Okwuosa told This Day.

According to the CEO, the most important aspect of the project is the possibility of getting enough gas to fill up the pipeline. He stated that the NNPC is at present doing their best by working with the operating companies – IOCs, local companies and producers in order to try to get enough gas to go into the pipeline.