By Adedapo Adesanya
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA) has disclosed that in March 2021, a total of 63.3 per cent of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), also known as cooking gas, supplied in the Nigerian market, were imported.
According to the latest LPG Consumption data from the agency, this represented 77,840.6 metric tonnes of LPG in a vacuum (MT VAC) imported into the country in the month under review.
In general, the downstream petroleum industry regulator stated that a total of 123,076.332 MT VAC of LPG was supplied in the country in March 2021, 32.7 per cent higher than the 92,741.7 MT VAC of LPG supplied in February 2021; and 71.8 per cent higher than the 71,650.5 MT VAC supplied in March 2020.
The PPPRA report added that the volume of cooking gas imported in March 2021, was 76.2 per cent higher than the 44,179.7 MT VAC of cooking gas import in February 2021, and 97.5 per cent higher than the 39,419.8 MT VAC of the commodity imported in March 2020.
The PPPRA disclosed that the cooking gas imported into the country were sourced from the United States of America, Argentina and Equatorial Guinea.
On the other hand, the report noted that 45,235.7 MT VAC of cooking gas was sourced locally in March 2021, representing 36.,7 per cent of total gas supplied in the month under review.
The volume of LPG sourced locally in the month under review was 6.9 per cent lower than the 48,562.0 MT VAC of LPG sourced locally in February 2021, and 40.4 per cent higher than the 32,230.6 MT VAC gotten from the same source in March 2020.
The companies in the supply of LPG in the Nigerian market in March 2021, according to the report, were Algasco LPG Services Limited, a subsidiary of Vitol; NIPCO, Prudent Energy and Services Limited, Rainoil, Matrix Energy, Techno Oil, Stockgap Fuels Limited, Greenville Natural Gas Limited and PNG Gas Limited.
In the import category, the report noted that Algasco shipped in 10,068.1 MT, 22,300.1 MT and 9,771.5 MT of LPG from the US in three tranches, between March 1 and March 28, 2021; NIPCO imported 6,090.1 MT of LPG from Argentina, while Prudent imported 5,695.2 MT and 5,699.5 MT of the commodity, from Argentina and the USA respectively.
Rainoil and Matrix imported 6,200.1 MT and 6,508.7 MT of LPG, respectively, from Equatorial Guinea; while Techno Oil imported 5,507.3 MT of cooking gas from Argentina in the month under review.
In the locally-sourced category, the PPPRA report stated that NIPCO sourced 10,780.1 MT and 13,168.2 MT of LPG from the Bonny River Terminal (BRT) and the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), Bonny, respectively; while Algasco and Stockgap purchased 13,151.3 MT and 8,136.1 MT of LPG, respectively, from NLNG, Bonny.
Greenville and PNG Gas, who are mainly off-takers, received 197.9 MT and 1,460.3 MT respectively.
