The inability of West African countries to quickly resolve the Niger Republic coup is threatening the delivery of the $13bn Trans-Sahara gas pipeline, as the project faces funding challenges. S&P Global, in its report ‘Niger coup, financing woes rock Nigeria’s plan to supply gas to Europe’, said the project, which was one of Nigeria’s critical domestic investments, was currently bedevilled by funding challenges. Apart from being a major project in the country’s oil and gas sector, the Trans-Sahara pipeline, the project had been described as the West African country’s ticket to the European gas market. The S&P report came on the heels of a report by The PUNCH last month that the Niger coup had become a threat to other gas infrastructural projects such as the $25bn Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline and the 614 km Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano gas pipeline. The spokesperson for the NNPCL, Garba Muhammad, did not respond to inquiries on the viability of delivering the Trans-Sahara pipeline project any time soon.

Source: Punch September 14, 2023 04:33 UTC