By Louis Ibah
The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has called for the full domestication of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas , to guide against price manipulations at the international market.
Executive Secretary, NALPGAM, Bassey Essien, stated this in a statement in Lagos while reacting to the recent hike in cooking gas prices across the country.
He also debunked the claim that gas marketers and plant operators were behind the increment.
”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 international price of the commodity and interplay of foreign exchange rates,” Essien said.
He said 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 per cent of the products are imported by marketers. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has no dedicated 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 the marketers,” Essien said.
“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 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.