FG to save 60 percent cost of diesel from locomotive engine  

The Minister of Transportation, Saidi Alkali, Thursday  said 60 percent cost of diesel will be saved from the retrofitting process of locomotive engine when converted from diesel to Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).

The minister stated this during a tour from Idu and Kubwa Train station in Abuja alongside some investors, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission and other critical stakeholders in the railway sector.

He stated that what they are doing is  to cut cost adding that “when you look at the 70% component of the LNG, as against the 70% that was used on diesel, certainly the cost of using LNG will be drastically reduced to about 60 percent.

“The milestone achieved in the conversion of NRC locomotive to run on diesel/LNG will further save the cost of running the commercial trains.

“The exercise called “retrofitting” is achieved with a 30 percent ratio of diesel and 70 percent of LNG usage,” he said. 

The minister further  stated that “the locomotives were using diesel 100%. By retrofitting, we are going to use LNG 70% and diesel 30%. That is what we mean by retrofitting.

“The idea is by the time you use LNG 70%, the cost of running the locomotives will drastically be reduced. I am assuring Nigerians that we are going to enforce that. By the time all our locomotives are retrofitted, certainly the cost of transportation must drop drastically,” he said.

Alkali declined the possibility of the retrofitted locomotive’s running 100 percent on LNG, stating that “you convert to LNG 100% because it is a heavy engine. Normally, combustion is done with smaller engines like generators and cars.”