The Federal Government has promised to resolve challenges bordering on the supply and pricing of Liquefied Petroleum Gas in Nigeria’s domestic market, better known as cooking gas.
Chronicle NG reports that Louis Ibah, spokesman for the Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, said the minister waded into the issue following a rise in the price of LPG per kg from about N700 to above N1,100 in some parts of the country.
Top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited, led by Sansay Narasimi; the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority, led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed; and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited attended the meeting at the NNPC Towers in Abuja recently, at the instance of the minister.
The key challenges identified as responsible for the LPG price increase include FX sourcing for imports and insufficient supply to the domestic market by producers, reports said.
Ekpo expressed the concerns of President Bola Tinubu over the astronomical increase in the price of LPG and the attendant hardship for the majority of citizens.
The minister stressed the need to utilize Nigeria’s abundant gas reserves for the domestic market, urging multinational firms to prioritize local consumption and discourage excessive gas exports.
He told Punch News, “With the exponential increase in the price of LPG, there is a need for the Federal Government to intervene, and I am representing this at this moment.
“We acknowledge that some producers are exporting while we are faced with the challenges of importation.
“Public interest is the overriding interest all over the world for the government, and the demand for LPG will increase as we approach December… You have a public service obligation to collaborate with the government to ensure the security of gas supply; we need to therefore bend backwards and find solutions to ensure that we have sufficient supply and stability in-country and that Nigerians have gas.”
The minister thereafter constituted a committee with a mandate to come up with recommendations on how to boost supplies and crash LPG prices within a week.
