Stakeholders hail NLNG’s interventions, seek consensus on domestic energy policy

The Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) has argued for consensus over gas policies that will aid domestic consumption and transition to Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), otherwise known as cooking gas.

President of the association, Nuhu Yakubu during the association’s yearly conference and exhibition themed, “Energising the Future: LPG as a sustainable fuel in African Economies”, emphasised the need for consensus building, especially for national gas policies that can accentuate opportunities in the LPG industry and facilitate the complete transition to LPG.

According to him, NLNG’s LPG supply intervention remains Nigeria’s most significant domestic energy policy, going by its interventions in the domestic market as well as production and supply prospects from its recent commencement of the LNG Train 7 project

He explained that to ensure a steady supply of products, deliveries were made with NLNG’s dedicated vessel to all NLNG’s approved domestic receiving terminals in Nigeria.

The company had recently announced that it is dedicating 100 per cent of its LPG production to the domestic market, as well as commenced deliveries of propane into the domestic market from 2021.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo, also charged stakeholders in the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) sub-sector to ensure that they put Nigeria’s interest first.

Obasanjo argued that the domestic market has so much potential as the fastest-growing LPG market globally.

‘‘However there are challenges which I will call on all stakeholders to come together and resolve. These include but are not limited to more volumes from other domestic producers to the ever-rising demand/supply, infrastructural development to aid supply to the last mile and the issue of regulations such as VAT, among others, that make affordability by the common man a challenge,’’ the former leader said.

He encouraged other oil and gas majors to remain committed and look at how to develop the local liquefied petroleum gas sector as a way of showing appreciation to a country in which they have benefited enormously.

Obasanjo recalled that the leadership of NLPGA while on a courtesy visit alluded to the role that his administration played in promoting LPG use in the domestic market to what it has become today.

Obasanjo said the government under his leadership saw the Nigerian Gas Master Plan as a major interventionist concept to move the gas sector from its essentially dormant status in 2006 to a market-based system with willing sellers and willing buyers, realising the full potential of the sector for the benefit of all Nigerians.

He disclosed further that the thrust of the policy was to create a minimum level of supply by intervention. However, beyond this threshold, he said, it was expected that the basis for a fully competitive market would have been established and market forces would thereafter drive the growth of supply and demand in the market.

In essence, he maintained that the domestic supply intervention policy was a transitional policy intervention aimed in the short term at driving supply availability to a level that could sustainably support a fully competitive gas market.

The Chairman, National Gas Expansion Program (NGEP), Dr. Mohammed Ibrahim, in his presentation on “Gas Expansion Program in Nigeria: Opportunities and Challenges”, identified critical enablers for rapid gas development to include enabling policies, energy pricing and costing, industry structure, market rules, ease of doing business, consumer demand among others.