DPR warns against gas importation, says will stifle domestic production

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), has cautioned that granting import license for Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), also called cooking gas. It warned any attempt to do that will cripple Nigeria’s gas production drive.

Director of the DPR, Sariki Auwalu, said Nigeria has abundant and sweet gas waiting to be explored and the policy direction of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, on gas is expected to attract humongous investment that will help in transforming the economy.

Auwalu, said Nigeria produces about eight billion standard cubic feet of gas daily, exporting 3.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas and domestic utilisation now standing at 2,8 billion standard cubic feet of gas daily, and that what is needed to do at this point is to drive policy to mature the domestic gas market.

Speaking while reviewing implementation of the Nigerian gas transportation network code (NGTNC), launched last year, the Director said some potential investors are targeting investment in the domestic gas value chain.

He said that the Master-Plan is a guide for the commercial exploitation and management of Nigeria’s gas sector and aims at growing the Nigerian economy with gas by pursuing three key strategies to stimulate the multiplier effect of gas in the domestic economy, position Nigeria competitively in high value export markets and guarantee the long term energy security of Nigeria.

The price to pay is that, those using cooking gas are in for a hard time as the price of the product keep going up without any idea of when it would come down.

“The Federal Government is doing something about the issue so as not allow it efforts to waste because of high price of the commodity.”

“The government is working assiduously to look for additional sources of LPG in the country to reduce the foreign exchange component of the price.