Motorists running gas-fired vehicles in Nigeria save over 100% on fuel
… absence of refuelling stations, cost of conversion remain
Private cars and commercial bus owners who have converted their engines to use both petrol and natural gas say the economic benefits are large but refuelling stations and the cost of conversion have remained major hurdles.
A two-cylinder conversion kit costs N400,000 to install and a single-cylinder kit costs N250,000. Depending on the weight of the vehicle, a single cylinder of 14scm takes a commercial bus from Ibafo, Ogun State to Ibadan. But the drivers buy petrol on their way back because there are no refuelling stations along the way.
NIPCO plc, a major player in Nigeria’s natural gas vehicles (NGVS) space, is currently constructing a pipeline from Ibafo-sagamu-ibadan to provide CNG services for vehicles. Nonetheless, the savings after the conversion are significant.
Tunji Adeniji, former president, Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), recently converted his Toyota Hilux truck to use CNG (two cylinders) at the NIPCO gas station at Ibafo, which also houses a conversion workshop.
Tunji says the two cylinders take him as far as Lokoja from Lagos where there is a CNG refuelling station. It cost N7,000 to fuel at Ibafo and another N7,000 at Lokoja for refuel to get to Abuja. This is a trip that costs N25,000 on petrol in the same vehicle to Lokoja and another N25,000 from there to Abuja.
“The savings are massive,” he said.
Additionally, it costs an average of N2,500 for petrol to travel to Warri and back from Benin City, a journey of 193 kilometres. On compressed natural gas, the same journey costs on average N1,300, according to Emmanuel Uzoefune, an operator of commercial buses in Benin City. A litre of petrol costs on average N160, while a standard cubic metre (scm) of compressed natural gas (CNG) costs N90.
However, without CNG refuelling stations and high conversion costs, the Federal Government’s drive to deepen gas utilisation for transportation through its autogas programme is likely to suffer significant setbacks. Already, it was initially planned for a nation-wide rollout of the programme to start in October 2020.
This has been moved to December for the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC) mega stations, according to Mele Kyari, group managing director, NNPC. The Ministry of Petroleum Resources counts on these mega stations for the rollout.
Under its National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP), the Federal Government has outlined timelines for a massive rollout of CNG, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and liquefied natural gas (LNG) for vehicles. The autogas programme was slated to start by October but people familiar with the matter say not much is happening yet.