Cooking gas
Cooking gas price under monitor by FG. The Federal Government has begun a process to address issues concerning the supply and pricing of Liquefied Petroleum Gas in the domestic market, also known as cooking gas.
A statement by Louis Ibah, spokesman for the Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, said 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 the meeting, at the instance of the minister, which was held at the NNPC Towers Abuja recently 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.
The PUNCH reports that key challenges identified as responsible for LPG price increase include FX sourcing for imports and insufficient supply to the domestic market by producers.
Ekpo highlighted President Bola Tinubu’s worry over the exorbitant increase in the price of cooking gas and the resulting hardship for the majority of population.
The minister who noted that Nigeria is abundantly endowed with gas reserves, said the situation where some of the multinational firms were more concerned with gas exports without dedicating huge volumes to the domestic market was unacceptable and should be discouraged.
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 recognize that some producers are exporting while we face importation challenges.”
“Public interest is the overriding interest for governments all throughout the world, and 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.”
The minister thereafter constituted a committee with a mandate to come up with recommendations on how to boost supplies and crash LPG prices within a week.