Nigeria LPG Consumption Surpasses Target … as NLNG pays FG $13bn for gas purchase

Chinazor Megbolu

The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has said that its Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) consumption surpassed the target for the Q1 2020.

The Federal Government agency on Wednesday in a report, said the reliable data is for all petroleum products operations in Nigeria both imports and exports saddled with its mandate number three (3) of the PPPRA Act 2003.

The report from the agency disclosed that government’s priority objective of attaining Five (5) million MT of LPG consumption by the year 2022, which puts the national consumption target at 83.33 thousand MT per month from 2018 to 2022 estimated, Nigeria has recorded 89.91 thousand MT LPG utilisation in the month of January 2020 with a positive variance of 7.9 per cent above the targeted estimated figure.

The document also maintained that the Federal Government has shown its commitment to gas revolution priority hence inaugurating the National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) Committee to drive the deepening of LPG penetration.

The committee according to the statement will also oversee the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) auto-gas utilisation as well as other gas utilisation objectives partnering with all the stakeholders in the sector.

Meanwhile, the Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) has paid over $13 billion to the Federal Government for feed-gas purchase.

The organisation hinted on its Twitter account on Wednesday that since the inception of its operations, NLNG has also paid over $7 billion in dividends and $8 billion in taxes to the federal government through the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC).

The NLNG maintained that it has supplied 50 per cent of cooking gas in Nigeria with 100 per cent Nigerian management and 95 per cent Nigerian staff.

According to the report, “we have recorded many milestones within 31 years of incorporation and over 20 years of production. With a 22 million tons per annum (MTPA) six-train plant on Bonny Island, the NLNG has reduced gas flaring from 65 per cent to less than 20 per cent and generated over $108 billion in revenue”.