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THE Nigerian Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association, NLPGA, has decried the lack of functioning cooking gas cylinder manufacturing plants in the country. Dayo Adeshina, president, NLPGA, said the federal government should put in place intervention funds to encourage the manufacture of cylinders in the country.

He said this will stem the loss of about $10 million being spent annually to import them. “This country should have at least 12 cylinder manufacturing plants; Indonesia has well over 15 plants,” he said.

He said the consumption of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly known as cooking gas, in the country could rise to as much as 1.5 million tonnes per annum if the infrastructural challenges in the industry were addressed. He said the growth and investments seen in the past 10 years had mostly been driven by the private sector, including members of the association.

Adeshina said, “Our members can’t invest in infrastructure if a lot of the impediments from the government side are not addressed. Cylinders are a perfect example. We have two cylinder manufacturing companies in the country, but both of them have shut down due to high tariff on flat steel, and then, the power problem. Today, we solely rely on importation for cylinders. Of course, the duties on that are also extremely high. So, that is a big disincentive to anybody that wants to invest in the sector.”

Commenting on the logistics challenge at the jetties and terminals, he said, “In Lagos, there are three coastal terminals; Navgas is the biggest (8,000 tonnes); PPMC’s North Oil Jetty has capacity for 4,000 tonnes; and Nipco is 4,500 tonnes. Of those three terminals, only one is a dedicated LPG terminal.”

According to him, LPG is probably one of the most versatile fuels apart from the fact that it is very clean, and it is used as vehicular fuel and for power generation in other countries, including Ghana.

— Feb 27, 2017 @ 01:00 GMT

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