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Nigeria’s AKK Pipeline (23 bcm/year) set to deliver first gas by July 2026

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Nigeria plans to begin delivering natural gas to the capital city Abuja by July 2026 through its Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) gas pipeline, according to the upstream oil regulator Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission.

  • The USD2.8bn project, first conceived in 2008, has missed several delivery targets, including earlier deadlines of 2023 and the final quarter of 2025. Commissioning was delayed to 2026. 
  • The country officially launched construction in 2020 of the gas pipeline, with a capacity of 3.5 bcf/d (36 bcm/year). In a first phase, it is planned to deliver 2.2 bcf/d (22.7 bcm/year) to domestic customers.

In addition, an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) is expected in 2026 for a USD25bn Nigeria-Morocco gas pipeline (NMGP), according to Morocco’s National Office of Hydrocarbons and Mines (ONHYM).

  • In 2023, Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) signed an MoU on the NMGP project. The NMGP is a 5,600 km gas pipeline project with a capacity of 3 bcf/d (31 bcm/year), crossing 13 countries, including Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Gambia, Senegal, Mauritania, and Morocco. The NMGP would provide gas to West African countries up to Morocco and, subsequently, to Europe. First gas from initial segments is targeted for 2031. 
  • Project developers plan to advance construction in phases, allowing individual sections to progress independently rather than relying on a single final investment decision. The project has completed feasibility and front-end engineering design (FEED) studies. Following the IGA, a governing authority is expected to be established in Nigeria, bringing together representatives from the 13 participating countries to coordinate regulatory and political oversight.

Nigeria has considerable oil and natural gas resources (5 Gt and around 6,000 bcm proven reserves at end-2024). The country is the largest gas proved reserve holder in Africa (8th in the world) and the second oil and NGL proved reserve holder in Africa, after Libya, according to our data. However, much of the country's gas infrastructure remains underdeveloped.

The country is also pushing to boost its oil industry. In that context, US major ExxonMobil has very recently unveiled proposals to spend as much as USD24bn in a pair of long-stalled deepwater oil projects offshore Nigeria, for existing and new projects.