By Olamide Francis
Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has bemoaned the hike in cooking gas price, which was attributed to the current high exchange rate.
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The group also called for the full domestication of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas, to guide against price manipulations at the international market.
Reacting to the recent hike in cooking gas prices across the country, the Executive Secretary, NALPGAM, Bassey Essien clarified the claim that gas marketers and plant operators were behind the increment.
According to him, we have watched the continuous spike in the price of cooking gas, moving from N4 million to N5 million for a 20MT truck to the current price of N5.3 million within a month interval.
“The current high price of cooking gas is not traceable to marketers, plant owners, or terminal owners, but rather to the vagaries of the international price of the commodity and the interplay of foreign exchange rates,” Essien said.
He explained that at this time of the year, the demand for LPG is always high in the western world because of the peculiarity of their weather, thus the high demand and price increase.
“Nigeria consumes about one million metric tonnes of LPG annually and 65 percent of the products are imported by marketers. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has not dedicated the window of foreign exchange for LPG importers, thus the sourcing of foreign exchange at a high price which ultimately dictates the price the product gets to marketers.
“This brings to the fore our persistent request for the full domestication of LPG supply in the country to guide against price manipulations by international market and foreign exchange”, he said.
Essien pointed out that the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas Company produces four million MT of gas annually but allocates 350,000MT for domestic consumption.
“As marketers, we are saying that NLNG and others producing LPG should domesticate it by dedicating sufficient quantity that will cover our domestic consumption,” he added.