The Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM), has urged the Federal Government to mandate both local and International Oil Companies (IoCs) to sell Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to the domestic market.
In a statement by the President of the association, Nosakhare Ogieva-Okunbor, such action from government would ultimately improve LPG availability and lead to price stability.
Ogieva-Okunbor extend the association’s appreciation to the Management of Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) on the recent announcement by the Managing Director, Mr Tony Attah that the gas company would increased allocation of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) from 350,000Metric Tons to 450,000Metric Tons by 2021 to the domestic market
The is a major company’s contribution towards supporting the various Federal Government’s plan to deepen Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Cooking Gas) penetration in Nigeria.
With the involvement of NLNG in LPG industry in Nigeria, consumption of about 50,000MT in 2007 grew to about 900,000Metric Tons in 2019. As of today, 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 will grow exponentially and by the end of year 2020, it is estimated that domestic demand for LPG would have exceeded One million Metric Tonnes.
Nigeria produces about 4million Metric Tonnes of LPG per annum, largely for exports. Currently, the NLNG supplies about 40% of LPG in the domestic market while the remaining 60% is sourced by individual investors via imports.
And with the emergence of many private storage terminals in the country, sourcing of products have been wholly and solely dependent on imported LPG. The implication of this is that much pressure is put on the country’s foreign exchange to import a product that is abundantly available in the country.
“We therefore want to specially appeal to NLNG to further consider increasing the domestic supply of LPG to the level that will reverse the current trend of the Nigerian market depending substantially on imported LPG product”.
