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The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, has assured Nigerians that the Federal Government is committed to deepening the penetration of gas in the country.
The minister decried the situation where Nigeria, a major gas producer, is ranked among the countries with the lowest consumers of the product.
He spoke when a team of Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas led by the National President of the association, Mr. Oladapo Olatunbosun, paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja on Wednesday.
Ekpo said: “We are working towards ensuring that our vast gas resources are available domestically at the right price for the public in line with President Bola Tinubu’s aspiration for the sector and economy.”
He lauded the marketers for their cooperation in bringing down prices of gas to reflect current realities following the ban on the export of Liquified Natural Gas (LPG).
“We would not have gone that far without your cooperation and support,” he said.
On his part, Olatunbosun commended Ekpo for the federal government’s courage and boldness to order the domestication of all LPGs produced within the country.
He said the policy had resulted in the reduction and stabilisation of the product’s price in the domestic market.
He recalled that during a stakeholders' consultative forum in Abuja in February this year, the association had drawn the minister’s attention to the fact that some International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in Nigeria had been exporting huge volumes of gas out of the country.
He rationalised that if those volumes of gas were to be available for the domestic market, there would be no need to import LPGs at exorbitant rates as the product would be available and there will be price stability in the local market.
He thanked Ekpo for heeding their plea, saying his intervention had seen the price of LPG that was sold for N20 million per 20 metric tonnes reduced to N15million per 20 metric tonnes, and at the retail end, a corresponding decrease from N1,400 per kilogramme to between N900 and N1,000 per kilogramme.
Olatunbosun said: “We appreciate the fact that at the parley with us, you promised that the issue of exporting LPG in the face of inadequate supply and soaring prices will be addressed, and indeed you have taken steps to walk the talk.
“Today, we say thank you because the ban on LPG export has made a lot of changes in the market and consumers can testify to this. People who abandoned their gas cylinders due to price hike are coming back and we are confident that by the time the Naira gains more weight, consumers will enjoy better prices of LPG.”
