Gas marketers under the aegis of the Nigerian Association of Liquefied Petroleum Gas Marketers (NALPGAM) have blamed the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) terminal owners for the current high price of cooking gas.
President of the NALPGAM, Oladapo Olatunbosun, said this when he led members of the association on a solidarity meeting with the Senate Committee on Gas on Monday. The price of liquefied petroleum gas, popularly called cooking gas, has risen to at least N1,200 per kilogramme cylinder of the gas.
Mr Olatunbosun said the price of cooking gas should not have skyrocketed to that amount because the gas terminal owners are getting the product at a cheaper price from the Nigeria LNG plant.
He told the committee that the gas terminal owners are getting the product from the NLNG plant at the rate of N9 million for 20 metric tonnes, whereas the terminal owners sell to the marketers at the rate of N16.8 million.
“As of today, gas is sold by these terminal owners for N16.8m for 20 metric tonnes whereas NNLG sells to them for a little bit less than N9m.
“When people go to fill their gas today, the least they get is N1,200 per kg. Imagine the pain of Nigerians. In Nigeria today, can a student or menial worker afford to cook a cup of beans with a N1,200 cost of gas?
“You buy gas for N9m from NLNG and pay in naira, then you sell the same gas for N16m and blackmail the government. When people get to our plants and we tell them the price, they start weeping and cursing the government whereas, the government has done their best to make life bearable to the people,” he said.
Responding, the Chairman of the committee, Jarigbe Jarigbe, assured that the Senate would look into the issue and come up with a lasting solution. Mr Jarigbe also promised that the upper house will address the effect of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions.
Source: Premium Times
