COOKING GAS: Dry Depots Raise Scarcity Fears

With the exception of NIPCO, all the major Liquefied Petroleum Gas (cooking gas) depots in Lagos are now empty, reports show.
It was gathered that depots belonging to Navgas, NOJ, and PPMC had run out of cooking gas due to very high demand following the recent face-off between the Nigerian LNG Limited and the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency.

"We still have a small supply of gas that could serve for about three days but if we load in the night, it is something that we can finish the next day," a source at NIPCO told our correspondent on the telephone.

NIMASA had blockaded the NLNG Bonny terminals for weeks, halting the loading of Liquefied Natural Gas for the export market and LPG for the domestic market.

The situation, which led to cooking gas price hike and scarcity, affected consumers who had to pay through their nose to get cooking gas.

Though product supply was restored after the NLNG blockade was lifted, the available product was immediately bought by cooking gas plants, 99 per cent of which went completely dry during the crisis.

This was done with the expectation that the cooking gas vessel would deliver another round of supply to further cushion the effect of the scarcity considered as the worse since NLNG started supplying LPG to the domestic market.

While the vessel is being expected, our correspondent gathered that the depots are already going dry and LPG retailers feared that the market could be thrown into another round scarcity.

As at July 25, the price of a 12.5-kilogramme cylinder of LPG, which was N5,000 in Lagos and Ogun states during the NLNG/ NIMASA scuffle, had dropped only to N4,000, a far cry from the N3,000 the same 12.5kg cylinder of gas sold for before the crisis.

The National President, Liquefied Petroleum Gas Retailers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Michael Umudu, who spoke with our correspondent, confirmed that the retail price for a cylinder containing 12.5kg of cooking gas was still N4,000 in Lagos and Ogun states.

He said the same volume of the product was still selling for N5, 000 in Benin because product circulation had yet to get to the state and the entire South-South and South-East regions.

While the depots are going dry again, Umudu expressed fear that the market might be thrown back into scarcity if LPG was not supplied on time.

Other stakeholders, however, said there was no cause for alarm, saying the hitches being experienced in the market was expected considering the fact that the depots and plants were completely emptied during the NIMASA/NLNG rift.


Punch