NNPC, Nigerian Govt to inject 20m cylinders via Gas Funding Company

The Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC Ltd) is collaborating with the Office of the Vice President on the establishment of Gas Funding Company Ltd for the injection of 20 million cylinders in the next five years.

The NNPC Ltd said the company’s establishment, which involved a collaboration of other relevant stakeholders and being done under the Marketer Cylinder Owned Model, would boost Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) penetration.

Malam Mele Kyari, the Group Chief Executive Officer (GCEO), NNPC, said this on Wednesday at the opening of the India-Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG summit) in Abuja.

The India-Nigeria LPG summit was hosted by the NNPC with the support of the Office of the Vice President and the World LPG Association (WLPGA).

The summit is expected to translate into bilateral exchanges to foster mutual collaborations and opportunities for the Nigerian LPG industry to learn from India’s experience, one of the world’s most successful national LPG penetration initiatives.

The summit has its theme as: “Energising the Future: Leveraging the Indian Experience to Achieve Nigerian National LPG Aspiration.”

Kyari, represented by Mr Adeyemi Adetunji, the Group Executive Director, Downstream, NNPC, said the summit would be required to submit a report detailing gaps identified and recommendations on best practices from the Indian experience.

This, he said, would be for adoption in Nigeria by relevant stakeholders to achieve rapid National LPG penetration.

He said the summit would equally discuss the Nigerian experience and Indian example covering safe LPG handling, pricing and financial support.

According to him, this will enhance LPG affordability among the poor, communication strategies, ICT and infrastructure as well as collaboration on Cylinder management and manufacturing.

Kyari said Nigeria had identified its abundant gas resources as fuel for an energy transition which informed its net zero commitments by 2060 and the declaration of 2021-2030 as a Decade of Gas.

“NNPC Ltd is an energy company with new investments in gas, power and renewables. Key pipeline projects such as ELPS II, OB3 and AKK to deliver a total of 6.2 billion cubic feet of gas per day to demand nodes across the country are at various stages of completion.

“We have a strong presence in the LPG value chain contributing about 45 per cent of domestic supply via JVs (Oso Bonny River Terminal) affiliates (Nigeria LNG Ltd and Ashtavinayak Hydocarbon Ltd) and subsidiaries of NPDC.

“The NNPC Ltd. is fully aligned with the Federal Government’s National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) and National LPG Expansion Plan initiatives and has a full-fledged LPG business unit established to commercially drive the National LPG penetration.

“Accordingly, NNPC Ltd is commissioned to deploy 740 LPG Micro Distribution Centres (MDCs) 37 Filing Plants and Skids in its 541 stations within the next three years,’’ he said.

(NAN)