LPG price surge threatens FG’s gas campaign
Lagos – The President Mohammadu Buhari government’s efforts at promoting increased use of gas in the country may not be achieving its targeted goal, as the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, LPG, also known as cooking gas, has surged to a record high across the country, forcing some consumers in search of alternatives.
Findings by SweetcrudeReports showed that a 12.5kg cylinder, which sold in Lagos for about N4,500 in June, is now selling at between N5,500 and N6,000 in different parts of the state.
Riding particularly on the back of recent devaluation of the naira, calculation puts a kilogramme of the product at N500.
In May, the Central Bank of Nigeria devalued the naira as it adopted the NAFEX exchange rate of N410.25 per dollar as its official exchange rate, raising the naira to as high as 503/$1 at the parallel market.
The Buhari administration had declared year 2020 and beyond a ‘decade of gas’ in a bid to draw citizens’ attention to embracing more use for gas.
Nigeria’s gas reserves recently hit 206.53 trillion cubic feet, the Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, Auwalu Sarki, declared during the recent Nigeria International Petroleum Summit in Abuja.
Data from the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, showed that as of June, the price of a 12.5kg cooking gas cylinder rose to N4,289 from N4,288 in May. As of June, states with the lowest average price for the 12.5kg LPG were Zamfara (N3, 736), Kaduna (N3,841), and Imo (N3, 911), while those with highest 12.5kg price were Enugu (N4, 811), Abuja (N4, 780), and Cross River (N4, 650).