BREAKING NEWS, Business
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SHELL Nigeria Exploration and Production Company, SNEPCo, has signed an agreement with Project Gaia Prospects Limited, PGPL, for the conduct of a pilot study on the use of Ethanol clean cook stoves, a cleaner and safer way of cooking. The SNEPCo will provide 2,500 clean cook stoves and 15,000 canisters for distribution to households in Lagos while the PGPL will ensure the supply of Ethanol fuel blended with methanol during the one-year study.
The (M)Ethanol clean cook stoves project aims to reduce mortality associated with indoor air pollution by providing cleaner and healthier cooking alternative to kerosene, firewood and charcoal.
According to the Global Alliance for Clean Cook stoves, GACC, household air pollution contributes to 70,000 premature deaths every year and affects 127 million people in Nigeria.
“We’re pleased to promote a safer cooking system in Nigeria as part of efforts to encourage access to a better source of energy,” Bayo Ojulari, managing director of SNEPCo, said at the signing ceremony on November 5, adding: “There is a compelling case for action on a better and leaner cooking method. I’ll be taking a personal interest to ensure the agreement we’ve just signed delivers on all promises and opens the door to safer cooking in Nigerian households.”
Similarly, Harry Stokes, director of Project Gaia International, said: “We started this journey with Shell International in 2001 and executed the first project three years later in Brazil and Haiti with support from Shell Foundation. We then went to Ethiopia where the government has supported the use of Ethanol clean cook stoves in all refugee camps because of the inherent health benefits. We’re happy that the project is now in Nigeria with the active support of SNEPCo.”
Stokes said Project Gaia planed the fabrication and assembly of the (M)Ethanol clean cook stoves in Nigeria to ensure their availability and promote local content development in Nigeria.
Also speaking, David Martin, Shell’s general manager, production, who serves on the board of the GACC, said he was eagerly looking forward to the completion of the pilot study in Lagos so the benefits could quickly spread to other parts of Nigeria. This is about saving lives, stopping deforestation, and creating employment through the production of the clean fuels in-country and the planned local assembling of (M)Ethanol clean cook stoves by Project Gaia,” said.
The SNEPCo had earlier supported a pre-pilot health study in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital under the supervision of Christopher Olopade, a professor and specialist in pulmonary medicine at the School of Medicine of the University of Chicago in the United States. The 150 households covered in the study said they found the Ethanol clean cook stoves better and more convenient.
The SNEPCo said it hoped to promote wider usage of the new cooking system and encourage families to switch from unclean fuels through the Lagos pilot.
The company’s role in the (M)Ethanol clean cook stoves project in Nigeria followed from Shell’s active participation in the Global Alliance for Clean Cook stoves. The alliance, according to the SNEPCo, is working with governmental stakeholders and partners to enable 17.5 million households to adopt clean cook stoves and fuels in Nigeria by 2020.
— Nov 9, 2015 @ 14:00 GMT
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