Experts call for more stations
Presidency, yesterday, declared that Automobile Compressed Natural Gas (AutoCNG) has attracted over $491 million of investments in the past year, with hopes to hit $1 billion in Nigeria’s alternative fuel sector by the end of 2025.
Programme Director / CEO of the Presidential CNG Initiative, Michael Oluwagbemi, disclosed at a media briefing held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
The initiative, launched by President Bola Tinubu on October 1, 2023, was aimed at facilitating the adoption of natural gas and other alternatives, including EVs in light of the removal of fuel subsidy that led to transportation costs at the onset of the policy.
In his briefing, Oluwagbemi said the initiative had created over 9,000 direct and 75,000 indirect jobs.
“Nigeria’s conversion capacity of vehicles from pure petrol and diesel to Bifuel vehicles was raised by almost 3.000 per cent with more than 200 new conversion centres established, from just mere seven that existed in Nigeria when the programme started, by the private sector, while directly employing over 3,000 new technicians occasioned by the launch of the Conversion Incentive Programme.”
According to Oluwagbemi, some of the recent negative occurrences involving CNG vehicles, especially in Benin, Edo State, were a result of sabotage.
He said: “We recognise the initial safety skepticism of the public and we have responded to it by collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Petroleum (Gas) to develop an end to monitoring of not just CNG but all gas vehicles through a collaborative initiative of the four principal regulators in the sector: SON, NADDC, NMDPRA and FRSC.
MEANWHILE, the Federal Government has been urged to provide more support for the development of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) infrastructure in Nigeria, as the country seeks to reduce its reliance on costly petroleum products.
This call was made yesterday, at the launch of CNG Auto Conversion and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) bottling plant by AX Gas, held in Lagos to promote the use of alternative fuels.
In his speech, the CEO of AX Gas, Andre Bassey, stated that the company was working closely with the Presidential Compressed Natural Gas Initiative (PCNGI).
According to him, the PCNGI provides licences and conversion kits to authorised facilities, like AX Gas, enabling them to offer affordable CNG solutions to vehicle owners. He also said they offered services to commercial vehicles at no cost.
He urged the government to create an enabling environment for stations to be built across the country, where people could refill CNG easily.
Speaking on people’s fear of explosion using CNG, Bassey noted that negligence was the reason for the explosions earlier reported.
