FG raises committee to crash cooking gas price

The high cost of cooking gas has raised the alarm of the federal government and has led to the formation of a committee to reduce the price within a week and tackle supply issues.

The Minister of State Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, has intervened in the difficulties affecting the supply and pricing of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in the country’s domestic market.

According to Ekpo’s media, Louis Ibah, the intervention on LPG (also known as cooking gas) comes after the increase in recent months in the price of LPG per kg from around N700 to over N900 in some parts of the country.

Our correspondent reports that the price even went beyond N1200 per kg in some states.

Ibah, in a statement, said key challenges identified as causing the LPG price hike include FX sourcing for imports and inadequate supply to the domestic market by producers.

The meeting, at the request of the minister, was held at the NNPC Towers in Abuja and had in attendance top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited, led by Sansay Narasimi; the Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed; and the NNPCL.

The minister, who noted that Nigeria is richly endowed with gas reserves, said the situation where some of the multinational firms were more interested in gas exports without allocating huge volumes to the domestic market was unacceptable and should be stopped.

The gas minister then set up a committee headed by the NMDPRA boss with a mandate to produce recommendations on how to increase supplies and lower LPG prices within a week.