By Nneka Nwogwugwu
The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has given reasons the federal government alone cannot halt the hike the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) across Nigeria.
Mr Bassey Essien, Executive Secretary, NALPGAM, explained these reasons on Tuesday in Lagos.
Essien decried the increment in the price of LPG, also known as cooking gas in the past few months, noting that there was need to put in place a policy that would encourage full domestication of LPG.
While speaking to the News Agency of Nigeria, he said: “The major issue we have with gas price is that majority of what we are consuming is imported.
“Over one million metric tonnes of gas was consumed by Nigerians in 2020 and about 65 per cent of the product was imported by marketers.
”So the price of gas is affected by what is happening in the global market because though Nigeria produces about four million metric tonnes of gas annually, only 350,000MT is allocated to the domestic market.
“Unfortunately, the government cannot increase the allocation to meet our full domestic demand without the buy-in of other partners of NLNG.”
Essien said the hike in the price of cooking gas was affecting the government’s National Gas Expansion Programme, which was aimed at deepening gas utilisation in Nigeria.
Marketers generally believe that it is not feasible for the government to unilaterally direct the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (NLNG) to increase its domestic LPG allocation without the support of other stakeholders.
Experts are of the opinion that a considerable increase in domestic LPG allocation would translate to a reduction in the price of gas as against the current soaring price of the essential commodity.
