It was marketers’ doom as Wednesday saw the demand for Liquefied Natural Gas (LPG) popularly known as cooking gas dropped to a record low across the country.
The consecutive market report gathered on Tuesday showed that consumers had lately either reduced consumption or ditched the commodity for cheaper alternatives such as coal and firewood.
President, Nigerian Gas Association, Ed Ubong, said during a downstream event in Lagos that national annual consumption was currently between 1.3mn and 1.5mn metric tons from the Federal Government’s annual target of 5mn metric tons.
Read Also: Independence From Russian Gas Would Take Longer – Italy PM
This brings to fore, the achievement of President Buhari’s National Gas Expansion Programme which seeks to deepen local gas usage within the next decade.
According to him, price of 20 metric tons of cooking gas as of Tuesday shot up from ₦12mn to ₦12.8mn.
“Prices have been volatile for a while, and it’s because the purchasing power has dropped. Gas is no longer affordable, and buyers are either regulating use or found alternatives. As at today, a 20-metric-ton of gas sells for about ₦12.8mn. Price has hovered around 10mn-12mn before now. Just imagine what we bought last for N12mn rising by ₦800, 000 for one truck,”
While speaking during one of the technical sessions on the topic, ‘Gas as a catalyst for sustainable economic development- The role of Nigerian Content’, at ‘The Nigerian Content Midstream and Downstream Oil and Gas Summit 2022’ organised by the Nigerian Content and Development Monitoring Board, NCDMB in Lagos on Tuesday, gas stakeholders unanimously agreed that national gas consumption was currently very low. They expressed worry over the dwindling purchasing power of Nigerians. They, however, did not state what current actual consumption or demand was when compared to figures already quoted by Ubong.
The MD/CEO, TECNO Gas Ltd, Nkechi Obi, during the panel session, said gas pricing was one of the reasons for low demand across the country.
“Currently, gas demand is getting very, very low across the country, and this is due to high gas pricing”, she said, adding that lack of government policy to drive demand also formed part of the reason demand was abysmally low.
She urged the Federal Government to intervene in terms of formulation of policy and funding to drive up demand, adding that gas was a developmental commodity.
Findings showed that between 55-60 percent of gas utilised in Nigeria is currently being imported by independent marketers, while the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Limited (NLNG) supplies just 40 percent.
Nigeria has been described as a gas country with approximately 207 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of proven gas reserves, ranking 9th in the world and accounting for about 3 per cent of the world’s total natural gas reserves of 6,923 Tcf. Nigeria has proven reserves equivalent to 306.3 times its annual consumption.
Natural gas is estimated as the fastest growing fossil fuel in the world, and is projected to overtake coal by 2030, as the second largest source of energy.
