The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is currently increasing the supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, to crash the price of the commodity in the country.
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, made this disclosure while speaking at the inauguration of a 120-metric tonnes LPG storage and bottling plant by Emadeb Energy Services Limited in Abuja.
According to Kyari, the hike in cooking gas prices was an international issue.
“Two things are in play. One is the supply in the international market of gas. It moves with the price of every other petroleum product including crude oil and its derivatives,“ he said.
“So definitely, it is a reflection of what is happening in the international market. However, what we are doing is to increase supply and once supply increases, price will come down.”
The NNPC GMD said that the newly-inaugurated LPG plant was going to “reduce the cost of energy for Nigerians for the fact that LPG is cheaper than any other product you can think of, especially as cooking fuel.”
He commended Emadeb Energy Services Limited for building the LPG plant in Abuja, explaining that the project aligned with one of the steps the Federal Government had taken to provide gas for its citizenry.
He lauded the plan by the company to build similar plants in six different locations across the country within the next 12 to 18 months, adding that this was in line with President Muhammadu Buhari’s decade of gas initiative.
Kyari said: “We are aware that a lot of institutions and companies are doing this across the country. We are selecting this in line with Mr. President’s objectives to make this the decade of gas.”
He also stated that one of the many ways investors could key into the decade of the gas initiative was to have facilities like this for auto-gas conversion, and also to ensure that LPG is easily accessible to people.
Kyari also noted that the global energy transition had made the investment climate very ripe for gas even as he assured those investing in the LPG project that the NNPC would guarantee supply of gas to their facilities.
“We know that the investment climate is very ripe for auto-gas and auto fuel, especially in terms of LPG as a transition fuel globally. So, we know that this is a big market for Nigerian companies and this is one of the great companies that we have around.
“As NNPC, we will come in and we will guarantee supply. That is very important for us as a business. As you are aware, we are NNPC Limited in Nigeria and we also have to make money for Nigeria. We will be there in the upstream to provide the gas.”
