By Adedapo Adesanya
The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has said that it is working towards making Nigerians use alternatives like Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) for their vehicles as substitutes to petrol and diesel.
This was proffered by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the agency, Mr Sarki Auwalu, when the Minister of Information and Culture, Mr Lai Mohammed, paid an official visit to the headquarters of the department on Thursday in Lagos.
Mr Auwalu said vehicle owners could also use Liquefied Natural Gas (LPG) as an alternative, which covers more kilometres on a comparative basis.
He said the gas products, which are cheaper and more effective, were available in Nigeria.
According to him, the petroleum industry regulatory and records maintaining agency is pushing for price freedom so that people can have choices on the type of fuel they want to use.
“The CNG tank will give you the alternative. It is interesting to know that if you buy CNG equivalent of N10,000 to diesel or petrol, the gas will take you to cover more distance.
“It covers about 1.8 kilometres for every one kilometre that petrol or diesel will take you with the same volume and price. To convert your car from fuel to CNG, you don’t need more than N200,000 and it can even be converted free of charge if you join a network of gas supplier,” he said.
The director said that DPR has got the Dangote Group to convert most of its fleet of trucks to CNG and the vehicles are performing optimally.
He said the agency “is now talking to the road transport owners and the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to take a cue from Dangote by converting their commercial vehicles to CNG.”
This, he said, is in line with the agency’s push for the Nigeria gas expansion programme which will ensure that the filling system is available at filling station across the country where vehicles can buy CNG.
“We are equally pushing to make conversion kits available. This is also an area of new investment and job creation. We expect companies to invest in this new area of conversion for vehicles to be using both petrol and CNG.
“This will give Nigerians alternative to fuel and it will save the government the huge amount for subsidy and other.’’
According to the DPR chief, in many countries, filling stations sell three kinds of fuel with different prices for people to make their choice based on affordability and type of vehicle.
The director noted that 2020 has been declared as the “year of gas” and that the government “is introducing policies and programmes to make gas available for different purposes.”
On his part, Mr Mohammed after a tour of DPR onshore and offshore tracking facilities hailed the management of the department for their contributions to the growing national economy.
The Minister then charged the DPR management to do more of media advocacy for Nigerians to know more about the work the agency is doing.
