By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s leading energy trading company, Hyde Energy, has proffered strong recommendations for making Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) affordable and available in Nigeria.
This was discussed at the just-concluded 2nd West Africa LPG Expo & NLPGA Summit 2022 held in Lagos themed Energizing the Future: LPG as a Sustainable Fuel in African Economies as part of efforts to address the sector’s need for significant investments in infrastructure.
The conference, which has continued to gather momentum in Nigeria, is a platform for industry players to engage both indigenous and international stakeholders to attain insight into the LPG market and network with more than 3,000 delegates across the value chain.
The first day of the two-day conference featured a panel discussion where the Chief Executive of Hyde Energy, Mr Oladimeji Edwards, encouraged more collaboration amongst relevant stakeholders in the industry to develop necessary measures that can improve infrastructural development in the sector to reduce the cost of LPG and increase supply.
“To reduce the cost of LPG, it is very important to build infrastructure to a captive market, to take it from truck to skid, to dispensing unit, all the way down to the cylinders, and ultimately at some point, the next generation will reticulate as part of standard code for construction at which point in time, we would have had ample supply of LPG distribution across the country,” he said.
He further revealed that for infrastructural development to come into place, there is a need for all hands to be on deck and show the will to make it happen.
Mr Edwards stated that Nigeria has tremendous gas deposits but there is an inadequate infrastructure around gas resources.
“To reduce imports, adequate investment is required. Gas suppliers are importing LPG, paying in US Dollars, and due to inflation and devaluation this affects retail prices, but with good infrastructure, I assure you that we will have an enabling environment for investment to thrive and everyone will be happy,” he advocated.
Mr Edwards commended the effort of the NLPGA to bring together industry stakeholders to share ideas on contentious topics and share strategies to help Nigeria’s LPG market unlock its incredible potential saying, “this is a brilliant platform for relevant stakeholders in the industry. It is a great event which brings in international and indigenous experts to exchange ideas, opinions, trends and outlook for the future.”
Nigeria is one of the fastest-growing LPG markets in the world with more than 20 per cent average growth per annum for the past 10 years. In 2020, Nigeria recorded a national LPG consumption of 89.91 thousand MT (PPPRA, 2020), with a positive variance of 7.9 per cent above the targeted estimated figure.
Dipo Olowookere