Cooking Gas Price Reduces From N1,500 Per Kilogram After Export Ban

According to LPG dealers, the price of cooking gas, also known as liquefied petroleum gas, has dropped from approximately N1,500 per kilogram to approximately N900/kg as a result of the Federal Government’s restriction on its export.

Cooking gas merchants revealed this to Ekperikpe Ekpo; the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), during a courtesy call in Abuja. The dealers are affiliated with the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers.

The Federal Government has prohibited the export of LPG in an attempt to boost domestic production and justify a price collapse.

At the time, it was reported that due to an increase in the price of cooking gas, major players in the business and Nigerian makers of LPG were instructed to cease exporting

the product outside of the country. The National President of NALPGAM, Oladapo Olatunbosun, praised Ekpo for having the guts to order the domestication of all LPG produced in the nation during a meeting with the gas minister on Wednesday in Abuja.

The reason He emphasized that the policy had the effect of bringing the price of the product down and stabilizing it on the domestic market.

Olatunbosun, in a statement issued by the minister’s media aide, Louis Ibah, recalled that during a stakeholders consultative forum in Abuja in February this year, the association had drawn the minister’s attention to the fact that some international oil companies operating in Nigeria had been exporting huge volumes of gas. He pointed out that if these volumes were to be available for the domestic market, there would be no need to import LPG at exorbitant rates as the product would be available and there would be price stability in the local market.

The NALPGAM president thanked the Federal Government for heeding their plea, as the government’s intervention made the price of LPG that was sold for N20m per 20 metric tonnes reduced to N15m. At the retail end, there is a corresponding decrease from N1,400 – N1,500 per kilogram to between N900 – N1,000 per kilogram, according to the gas marketer, as contained in the statement.

Olatunbosun was quoted as saying, “We appreciate the fact that at the parley with us, you (Ekpo) promised that the issue of exporting LPG in the face of inadequate supply and soar in prices will be addressed, and indeed you have taken steps to walk the talk.

“Today we say thank you because the ban on LPG export has made a lot of changes in the market and consumers can testify to this.

“People who abandoned their gas cylinders due to price hikes are coming back and we are confident that by the time the naira gains more weight, consumers will enjoy the better price of LPG.”

In his response, Ekpo decried the situation where Nigeria, a major gas producer, was ranked among the countries with the lowest consumers of the product. He assured his guests of President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to deepening the penetration of gas across the country.