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Thursday, April 18, 2024 7:21 GMT
Despite huge gas resources, currently hovering around 206 Tscf, smaller African countries like Algeria and Equatorial Guinea are now exporters of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) to Nigeria amidst soaring prices. The Executive Secretary, Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), Abdulkadir Saidu yesterday, disclosed that 85, 264.803 metric tons of the cooking gas was supplied across the country in August 2021.Sadly, of the volume, as much as 47,224.346 MT was imported by NIPCO, Matrix, Algasco, Techno Oil, Prudent, A.A Rano, Stockgap and others in August this year. About 38,040.457 MT was sourced locally by Ever Oil, Stockgap, NIPCO, 11 plc, Greenville Natural Gas, PNG Gas Ltd, NPDC and Ashtavinayak Hydrocarbon Ltd.While infrastructure deficits have kept production below par, economic indexes, especially high inflation, weakening of the naira, scarcity of exchange rate and other challenges have already sent the prices of cooking above the reach of the poor who live on less than one dollar a day.Currently, a 12-kilogram bottle of cooking gas costs over N6000. It had traded for almost half of the price earlier this year. The report by PPPRA showed that 21,606.301 MT was imported from the USA, while 13,044.266 was imported from Algeria and 12,573.779 MT was brought into the country from Equatorial Guinea.