By Emmanuel Addeh For the first since its take-off last year, the $2.8 billion Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano (AKK) gas pipeline project received a boost recently when a Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) operated train delivered 96 pipes from Warri, Delta State to Itakpe in Kogi State. The Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano (AKK) project is a 614km-long pipeline being developed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to transport natural gas from southern Nigeria to central Nigeria and thereafter outside the country. It is planned to be developed on a build-own-operate-transfer (BOOT) basis under a public-private partnership (PPP), supervised by Nigeria’s Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).