Categories: Business

Cooking gas price rises by over 100 percent year-on-year

The price of household cooking gas known as Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) rose by over 100 percent Year-on-Year, the latest report from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has revealed.

On a month-on-month basis, the average retail price for refilling a 5kg cylinder of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (Cooking Gas) according to the report, increased by 7.57 percent.

According to NBS price watch data for June, 2022, the commodity’s price increased from N3,921.35 recorded in May 2022 to N4,218.38 in June 2022.

This implies a 103.93 percent increase from June 2021 where a 5kg gas sold for N2 069.

The report on state profile analysis, said Adamawa recorded the highest average price for refilling a 5kg cylinder cooking gas with N4,650, followed by Gombe with N4,566 and Niger with N4,540.

On the other hand, Zamfara recorded the lowest average price with N3,700 during the period, while Yobe and Kano had N3,820 and N3,875 respectively.

“In addition, the North-Central recorded the highest average retail price for refilling a 5kg cylinder of LPG with N4,378.95, followed by the North-East with N4,301.48, while the North-West recorded the lowest with N3,994.57,” the report added.

Similarly, the Bureau stated that the average retail price for refilling a 12.5kg cylinder of cooking gas rose by 8.70percent on a month-on-month basis from N8,726.30 in May 2022 to N9,485.91 in June 2022.

On a year-on-year basis, it said the price rose by 121.17percent from N4,289.05 in June 2021.

Energy expert, Mr. Zaka Bala faulted claims that hike in price of petroleum products was due to the hostilities between Ukraine and Russia.

According to him, there was need for the country to scale up efforts at revamping the refineries.

“Anytime we are discussing energy security, I feel very disappointed when I hear some people tying global shortages to Nigeria rather than explaining why Nigeria is using the wrong model leading to our inefficiencies.

“If you look at the hostilities between Ukraine and Russia, I feel surprised whe people try to justify why Nigeria should be experiencing energy insecurity. This is supposed to be a boom time for all countries that have crude oil or gas. The nations that are suffering are those without crude oil or gas

“Cooking gas is a product of crude oil, during crude oil refining one of the product to come out is LPG. In the case of Nigeria, we produce crude oil but we don’t refine internally, even in a family, you must first of all be able to feed your family before you think of outsider but in the case of Nigeria we cannot refine products internally and now that the price of crude oil is very expensive, they sell to refiners who will refine at higher prices, then Nigeria will go and buy at higher price and when they bring here , we will be complaining. There is no reason why LPG, kerosene, PMS, or diesel should be expensive”

On his part, Chinedu Ukadike, spokesperson of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) stated that the various initiatives of the government to deepen gas utilisation increased the demand for gas.

His words:”NNPC also came up with programmes to deepen gas utilization, the autogas, LPG,etc so alot of people converted to gas use including their generators so the demand for cooking gas became higher. On that ground what determines price is the factor of demand and supply.”

He urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on the refineries saying:”Short term solution is for FG to declare a state of emergency on our refineries and ensure that the refineries are working, fix pipeline refineries and also encourage modular refineries. Also build a new state of the art refineries with modern technology.”

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