The Minister State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo on behalf of the Federal Government has commenced engagements with stakeholders in the gas sector to resolve challenges bordering on the supply and pricing of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cooking gas) in the country’s domestic market.
These moves were made known by the Spokesman of the Minister, Louis Ibah in a statement he made available to newsmen. According to Louis Ibah, 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.
He said, at the instance of the minister, a meeting was held at the NNPC Towers Abuja which had in attendance top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited led by Sansay Narasimi; Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited.
At the meeting, the Minister expressed the concerns of President Bola Tinubu over the huge increase in the price of cooking gas across the country, which has further increased cost of living for many citizens.
The minister while noting that Nigeria is abundantly endowed with an enormous gas reserves, described as unacceptable the current situation where some of the multinational firms exploiting our gas resources were more concerned with gas exports without dedicating huge volumes to the domestic market.
He said, “With the exponential increase in the price of LPG, there is the 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”, Ekpo stated.
The Minister thereafter constituted a Committee with a mandate to come up with recommendations on how to boost supplies and crash prices of LPG across the country within a week.
Following the sudden increase in the price of LPG, producers and marketers of LPG have been pointing accusing fingers at one another on who is responsible as well as other contributory factors.
However, the key challenges identified as responsible for LPG price increase include FX sourcing for imports which is a direct consequence of insufficient supply of LPG to the domestic market by producers. The gas retailers on their part recently accused the major middlemen of hoarding products so as to cause supply shortages and thereby increase prices.