The recent crash in the price of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, (LNG) popularly called cooking gas has been linked to the Federal Government’s ban on its export.
Report of the crash in price of LNG from about N1,500 per kilogram to around N900/kg surfaced recently.
Cooking gas dealers under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers disclosed this during a courtesy visit on the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources (Gas), Ekperikpe Ekpo, in Abuja.
There were reports that the Federal Government banned the exportation of LPG in a bid to increase its volume domestically to warrant a crash in price.
It report stated at the time that LPG producers in Nigeria and key stakeholders in the industry had been told to stop exporting the commodity out of Nigeria, following the jump in the cost of cooking gas.
Addressing pressmen on Wednesday in Abuja, the National President, NALPGAM, Oladapo Olatunbosun, commended Ekpo for the courage in ordering the domestication of all LPG produced within the country, stressing that the policy resulted in the reduction and stabilisation of the product’s price in the domestic market.
Olatunbosun, in a statement issued by the minister’s media aide, Louis Ibah, recalled that during a stakeholders consultative forum in Abuja in February this year, the association had drawn the minister’s attention to the fact that some international oil companies operating in Nigeria had been exporting huge volumes of gas.
He had pointed out that if these volumes were to be available for the domestic market, there would be no need to import LPG at exorbitant rates as the product would be available and there would be price stability in the local market.