The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has cautioned that granting import licence for Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), also called cooking gas, will slow down anticipated growth in the gas sector.
Director of DPR, Sariki Auwalu, said Nigeria had abundant and sweet gas waiting to be explored and the policy direction of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, on gas, was expected to attract humongous investment that will help in transforming the economy. Auwalu said, today, Nigeria produces about eight billion standard cubic feet of gas daily, exporting 3.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas and domestic utilisation now standing at 2.8 billion standard cubic feet of gas daily, and that what is needed to do at this point is to drive policy to mature the domestic gas market.
Speaking on Tuesday while reviewing implementation of the Nigerian gas transportation network code (NGTNC) launched last year, the director said some potential investors were targeting investment in the domestic gas value chain.
He said that the master-plan was a guide for the commercial exploitation and management of Nigeria’s gas sector and aims at growing the Nigerian economy with gas by pursuing three key strategies to stimulate the multiplier effect of gas in the domestic economy, position Nigeria competitively in high value export markets and guarantee the long term energy security of Nigeria.
Meanwhile, findings shows that those using cooking gas are in for a hard time as the price of the product keep going up without any idea of when it would come down. It is gradually going out of the reach of low income earners as they could no longer bear the burden of the price of the commodity.
On Monday, the price of the commodity jumped to N7.6 million from about N3.6 million -N4 million per 10 metric tonnes last year. But from the beginning of this year, the price started increasing. 1,000 kilogram is equivalent to one metric tonne, and the ex-depot price of one kilogramme is put at N380. In the last one month, the price increased from N7 million to 7.2 million and then 7.3 million and on Monday it jumped by N400,000 to N7.6 million.
This is the amount the commodity is taken from the depots to the plants where it is refilled into the 12.5kg cylinders. The price of 12.5kg is about N6000 on the average at retail outfits in some parts of Lagos. The situation has been at-tributed to lack of foreign exchange to import gas into the country.
The in-county capacity for the companies producing LPG are just about 60 per cent, while the remaining 40 per cent is imported. The situation is being compounded with the introduction of Value Added Tax on the commodity.
The 12.5 kg that was selling for N3,500 has also jumped to N6000, while 3kg that was sold for N900 before has now jumped to about N2,500 and 6kg is being sold for about N4000, depending on the area where it is being sold. Government policies on foreign exchange has made it difficult to be accessed by importers of cooking gas or LPG.
SOURCE: newtelegraphng.com