The 40 tank wagons imported between 2012 and 2013 by the Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) for the haulage of petroleum products from the Apapa Ports to other locations are rotting away at the railway yards.
Some of the wagons are at the Apapa Yard. Others were sighted at the Ebute-Metta work yard.
The corporation, as part of strategic upgrading of its services, took delivery of the tank wagons in 2012 and 2013.The first 20 came in 2012. The last 20 were delivered last year. Each has an inbuilt capacity of 100,000 litres of petroleum products. The 40 wagons could haul four million litres of petroleum. They cost billions.
The wagons are expected to relieve the roads of heavy trucks that weaken them and decongest the ports and Apapa roads of petroleum tankers. Each tanker’s maximum capacity is 33,000 litres.
The Federal Government’s initial enthusiasm about the new deliveries and their capacity to transform haulage of this essential commodity across the country, especially to the North, had been shortlived as it has been hampered by other factors.
The wagons, it was discovered, has not been functioning because most of the tank farms around Apapa are not accessible. Many of the oil marketing companies were said to have flouted the planning regulations while constructing their tank farms by failing to build rail access into their facility.
Though officials of many of these oil companies refused to comment on the issue when contacted, a top official of the NRC who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, virtually all the tank farms at Apapa are guilty of building their farms without consideration for the use of railway, making their farms inaccessible to rail services.
“Out of all the oil majors operating tank farms in Apapa, only Mobil and Oando are said to be accessible and are presently hauling products from their farms through the railway.”
He said the failure to link these tank farms with the rail lines caused a delay in the realisation of the goal of hauling petroleum products by rail.
The Director, Mechanical, Electrical and Signal, Mr. Fidet Okhiria, an engineer, who corroborated this assertion, said the corporation was addressing the issue by laying rail tracks through all the tank farms in Apapa.
He said: “By the time the tracks are laid into these tank farms, thousands of tons of cargo and oil would be lifted weekly and this will assist in decongesting Apapa and take the pressure off the roads.
He said taking oil by rail from Lagos to Kano can be done within 72 hours, and urged oil firms to take full advantage of the service.
“We believe our customers would have more confidence in us after upgrading these tracks. This is because it would assure them that we have reliable tracks and wagons, and can better safeguard their commodities,” Okhiria said.
“What we are doing now,” he said, “is that we are setting the tracks into the fuel dumps that hitherto had no tracks for easy access. They are on railway land and the agreement is that they should carry their products through railway.”
He said this phase would be completed by November.
“The contractor has assured us that the laying would be completed by November. When this is completed, we would erase the complaints by some of our prospective customers that the present system is more costly and are using that excuse to continue to patronise tankers,” Ohhiria said.
He said though the rail tracks are still the narrow gauge, they have been upgraded from 60 pap to 85 pap, which makes the tracks stronger and could withstand the pressure assoc
“We are changing the tracks from 60 to 85 rail pap. So instead of the rail tracks breaking off as a result of heavy load or pressure, it will endure.
“We have two types of rails in Apapa. The first category is tracks for passenger service while the other is for cargo service. We access containers from cargo tracks. In Apapa, only the Flour Mill factory complied and that’s why their products are being evacuated to the North through the rail. We presently load about 600, 000 tons of goods from Flour Mills per month to Kano.
