The federal government has intervened over the increasing price of Cooking Gas, with the Minister of Petroleum (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, urging International Oil Companies (IOCs) and other producers to fulfil their domestic obligations before export.
At a meeting in Abuja, Ekpo told the producers that Nigeria has to find a way to surmount the challenges in the country’s domestic market, expressing President Bola Tinubu’s concerns over how unaffordable the product was becoming.
The intervention is coming as the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest report, said that in October LPG prices rose by as much as 14 per cent in October for a 12.5 kg tube.
But a statement by the minister’s media aide, Louis Ibah, yesterday said the intervention on the LPG issue, better known as cooking gas, followed the rise in recent months in the price of the product per kg from about N700 to above N900 in some parts of the country.Key challenges identified as responsible for LPG price increase, Ekpo said, include FX sourcing for imports and insufficient supply to the domestic market by producers.
The meeting, at the instance of the minister, was held at the NNPC Towers and had in attendance top officials of Chevron Nigeria Limited led by Sansay Narasimi.Others included: The Nigerian Midstream Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) led by its Chief Executive Officer, Farouk Ahmed and officials from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC). “Ekpo expressed the concerns of President Bola Tinubu over the astronomical increase in the price of cooking gas and the attendant hardship on majority of citizens,” the statement added.
