Ime Akpan
The federal government is set to implement a policy that will make ownership of gas cylinders rest strictly on the dealers and distributors.
The senior technical assistant to the minister of state for petroleum resources on downstream and infrastructure, Ms. Brenda Ataga disclosed this at a stakeholders’ forum on ‘LPG penetration’ held in Abuja on Tuesday.
She said the planned policy on gas cylinders would deepen the penetration and usage of LPG, popularly called cooking gas across the country as well as address issues of safety.
“It is for us to be able to, at any point in time, discern and discover cylinders that are bad, cylinders that need recertification and cylinders that need to be removed from circulation.
“We put that onus on distributors going forward, to support the safe and standard method of selling LPG. I tell you today that Nigeria is the only country in West Africa that does not practice the re-circulation model. Everyone has moved away from this because again, most of the population cannot afford cylinders; so, you have to remove that cost from them,” said Ataga.
Meanwhile, she said the government had reached an agreement with two original cylinder manufacturers to deliver 600,000 cylinders to LPG distributors on credit, with a pre-payment period of 18 months.
She said the federal government would soon commence a clampdown on illegal roadside LPG dealers and urged operators to immediately convert their outlets to micro distribution centres before the beginning of the enforcement.
“The MDCs will essentially create and introduce into the market what we call the cylinder exchange programme, whereby the cylinders are owned by the distributors,” she said.
To the operators, she said: “There is no need for you to decant for anybody that comes in, and that eliminates illegal risks as well. You would fill them at the refill plants that would be tied to you and exchange it with your customers because you know your customers already.
“Your customers pay for only the content, while you own the cylinders and control the management of those cylinders.”
