FG to distribute 5m cooking gas cylinders in one year

The federal government says it will make available five to 10 million liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders into the market in the next one year.

Dayo Adeshina, programme manager of the national LPG expansion plan, said this on Wednesday, during a sensitisation workshop on LPG adoption and implementation for industry stakeholders, in Lagos.

Adeshina said Nigeria has a gas reserve of 203 trillion cubic feet (tcf), adding that the federal government plans to collaborate with stakeholders to ensure its safety and utilisation for development purposes.

He explained that the national LPG expansion plan implementation, domiciled in the office of the vice-president, is aimed at achieving Nigeria’s target of five million metric tons of LPG consumption annually by 2027.

“We are starting the cylinder injection under the first phase in 11 pilot states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with two states from each of the geopolitical zones,” he said

“The states are Lagos, Ogun, Bauchi, Gombe, Katsina, Sokoto, Delta, Bayelsa, Ebonyi, Enugu, Niger.

“The cylinders will be injected through the marketers. The marketers will be responsible for the cylinders and the exchange will take place in homes and not in filling stations.

“What this means is that going forward, cylinders will not be owned by individuals but by the marketers who will ensure that they are safe for usage.”

Adeshina noted that apart from household consumption, the federal government was also moving to increase LPG usage in agriculture, transportation and manufacturing.

He said this will enable the country to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emission by about 20 percent and create millions of jobs for Nigerians.

Adeshina further said asides investment in infrastructure, the federal government had also granted waivers on importation of LPG equipment and removed value added tax (VAT) on LPG.

In his remarks, Olalere Odusote, commissioner for energy and mineral resources in Lagos, said the state’s population makes it critical for residents to adopt cleaner energy sources for cooking, transportation and power generation.

Odusote said the state government was targeting the conversion of 45 percent of about four million vehicles present in Lagos to auto gas over a four-year period in partnership with marketers.