Louis Ibah
Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) has commended the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Limited over its plan to increase allocation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to the domestic market from 350, 000MT to 450, 000MT by 2021.
NALPGAM’s President, Nosakhare Ogieva-Okunbor, in a statement in Lagos on Wednesday, lamented that though endowed with natural gas resource, about 60 per cent of LPG (cooking gas) used in Nigeria was being imported. He said the proposed plan by the NLNG would improve LPG availability which would ultimately lead to price stability in the local market.
He however, appealed to the NLNG to further consider increasing the domestic supply of LPG to the level that would reverse the current trend where the Nigerian market depended substantially on imported LPG product.
Ogieva-Okunbor said with the involvement of NLNG in the LPG industry in Nigeria, consumption which stood at about 50,000metric tonnes (MT) in 2007, grew to about 900,000MT in 2019.
“With the massive investment inflow, strong advocacy and awareness campaigns on the part of NALPGAM, Federal Government agencies, industry stakeholders as well as government’s incentives the consumption and usage has grown exponentially. By the end of year 2020, it is estimated that domestic demand for LPG would have exceeded One million metric tonnes.
“While the announcement of increased domestic allocation by NLNG is commendable, multinational and other indigenous companies involved in gas production should be mandated to sell to the domestic market which fortunately has the capacity to take up available production,” he said.
He said at present, the NLNG supplies about 40 per cent of LPG in the domestic market, while the remaining 60 per cent is sourced by individual investors through imports. “With the emergence of many private storage terminals in the country, sourcing of products has been wholly and solely dependent on imported LPG.
