‘Nigerians need 500,000 metric tonnes yearly’

The Nigerian Association of LPG Marketers has said that about 500,000 metric tonnes of gas are required to meet the needs of consumers nationwide.

The group also said that the price of cooking gas may not come down in view of the current state of the nation’s economy.

Speaking with reporters yesterday at the yearly general meeting of the association in Ibadan, its president, Mr. Basil Ogbuanu, said the allocated quota of 250,000 metric tonnes of LPG yearly to the Nigerian market was no longer enough to meet local consumption.
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He said: “Because of the way demand is going now, we need about 500,000 metric tonnes to meet the needs of consumers. The present quantity would not have been able to sustain us if not because of the little we are getting from the refinery and Niger Republic.”

Ogbuanu, who however, lamented that the 500,000 metric tonnes being proposed was still a far cry from what is obtained in other countries, said: “Between 2007 and now, we have about 150 gas plants coming up by private investors. Even at that, our consumption is still low, in fact lowest in Africa. Algeria that has just about one-tenth of our total population has a consumption rate of about 10 million metric tonnes whereas Nigeria that is more than 170 million people is still talking about 250,000 metric tonnes.

“With our population, we are supposed to be consuming not less than 20 million metric tonnes of cooking gas.”

On the increase in the price of cooking gas, Ogbuanu stressed that the present state of the economy coupled with the exchange rate left them with no alternative.