In reaction to the unstable price fluctuations that has besieged cooking gas sales in the country, the Nigeria Liquified Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) has provided the reason for the unsteady cost of cooking gas.
The President, Nuhu Yakubu spoke during a visit to former President Olusegun Obasanjo in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital.
Yakubu said the fluctuations in the LPG price were caused by the local rate of the American currency.
“Once the United States dollars rise, it is only logical that it will affect the retail price”, he explained.
“But thanks to the Nigeria LNG, there is a dominant supplier in the market otherwise it would have been worse than this.”
Yakubu said there could have been some stability in supply and pricing if successive governments copied the policy initiated by the Obasanjo administration.
The Energy and Power expert recalled that the blueprint which went into effect in 2005 led to current supply sustainability. He said it got international oil companies and producers of gas to commit a certain volume of their production to domestic use.
The NLPGA leader, however, disclosed that advocacy and talks are ongoing to address all critical issues.
Yakubu further stressed the need for the close private-public sector collaboration to manage the situation
Obasanjo thanked the delegation for the visit and promised to present a keynote address on the LPG industry at next month’s summit.
It has also been revealed that the current national annual consumption of cooking gas is between 1.3mn and 1.5mn metric tons, showing a wide margin from the Federal Government’s annual target of 5mn metric tons.
President of, the Nigerian Gas Association, Ed Ubong, while speaking at a downstream event in Lagos on Tuesday, said there was a need for Nigeria to deepen domestic production of gas to bring down prices and increase local consumption, adding that affordability was being threatened.
Situation reports from the market on Tuesday showed that consumers had lately either reduced consumption or ditched the commodity for cheaper alternatives such as coal and firewood.
