Following the rising price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), commonly known as cooking gas, the Federal Government has set up a committee with a mandate to deliver recommendations within a week on how to enhance supplies and reduce the cost of the product.
The price of cooking gas rose from N650 in August to N1,100 in November, representing about 90% price increase in just three months.
The Economy gathered that the Federal Government was worried by the ugly trend and this necessitated the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo to call a meeting of stakeholders on matter recently to resolve challenges in the product’s supply chain.
The minister told the industry actors that President Bola Tinubu was seriupsly concerned over the huge increase in the price of cooking gas and the attendant hardship on citizens, saying that the trend must stop in order to bring succour to Nigerians who depend on LPG for cooking.
The minister’s spokesman, Louis Ibah, said the meeting was held recently at the instance of the minister at the NNPC Towers Abuja.
According to him, top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited led by Sansay Narasimi; Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed and representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited attended the meeting.
Major problems identified as responsible for the unabated rising price of cooking gas include scarcity and difficulties in sourcing of forex for importing the product and insufficient supply to the domestic market by producers.
“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,” the minister was quoted.
Ekpo, noted that Nigeria is abundantly endowed with gas reserves and lamented the situation where some of the multinational firms were more concerned with gas exports without dedicating huge volumes to the domestic market, insisting that such would no longer be acceptable.
