Users can no more own cylinders of cooking gas. A blueprint that will curtail direct users’ ownership of container cylinders of Domestic Liquefied Petroleum Gas (DLPG), popularly known as (cooking gas) directly, is in the works. The Senior Technical Assistant to the Honorable Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (STA-HMSPR) on Downstream and Infrastructure, Brenda Ataga affirmed that the planned policy implementation on gas cylinders would require that the ownership of the facility rests strictly on the dealers and distributors, not on users.
Brenda Ataga stated that Government intends the move to deepen the penetration of liquefied petroleum gas through a newly launched micro-distributor system (MDCs), which will also address the issues of safety of our environment.
The STA to HMSPR said: “The Project Management Office (PMO) for the proposed scheme on gas cylinder which is propelling the is scheme is concluding discussions on how to inject Six Hundred Thousand (600,000) gas cylinders to refilling plants’ owners on credit, with a re-payment period of eighteen months to tackle the menace of sales of LPG by the road side.”
While speaking at a stakeholder’s forum on LPG at the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Abuja on the 21st of May, 2019, Brenda said that the Federal Government would soon commence the clampdown on roadside LPG sellers whose activities are said to be illegal. She urged dealers to immediately revert their outlets to micro distribution centers (MDCs) before the beginning of the enforcement.
She further said that there will be a time in the nearest future where operators would no longer discount for anybody that comes in to refill their gas cylinders and that “eliminates illegal risks as well”; stating that refilling would now be done at the refilling plants that will be connected to the dealers who in turn will simply exchange the gas cylinders brought in for re-fill for customers because by the scheme, dealers would have known their customers already.
The STA said users will only pay for content, while the dealers will own the cylinders and control the management of those cylinders.
Atega said it is for us to be able to, at any point in time discern and discover bad cylinders; cylinders that need recertification will be removed from circulation.
However, Brenda said that Nigeria is the only West Africa Country that does not practice the re-circulation model. “Everyone has moved away from this because most of the populations cannot afford cylinders; so you have to remove the cost from them.
Those in attendance of the meeting were the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR)’s Engr. Umar Gwandu; the Director of Gas in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources (MPR), Mrs. Esther Obiageli Ifejika; the Civil Defence Commandant in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Patrick Ukpan; the Nigeria Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (NALPG) represented by Maikeku; the National Chairman, Branch of National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Retailer (LPGAR), among others.
Anthony Agurue
Press Unit, Ministry of Petroleum Resources,
For: deputy-Director, Press.
22nd May, 2019.
