Federal Government Says No Plans To Ban Gas Cylinder Imports

As part of the National Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) expansion and implementation plan, the Federal Government says it has no immediate plans to ban the importation of cylinders.

The Senior Special Assistant on Domestic Gas in the office of the Vice President, Dayo Adesina disclosed this in an interview with Journalists on Sunday in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital

He said that the government was working on first building local capacities before contemplating a ban.

According to Adesina, who is also the Programme Manager, National Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) expansion and implementation, Nigeria still had a lot of cylinder deficits to fill in meeting the LPG expansion plan.

He explained that the plan was to get LPG to the remotest of villages and discourage the use of firewood and other fuels inimical to the environment.

Adesina said that there were only about two million gas cylinders, in the country with a population of over two hundred million people  which he said was very poor compared to other countries.

He pointed out that Brazil, with a population similar to Nigeria, has a cylinder population of 150 million and an additional five million injected annually.

For India, he said that the cylinder population was over 100 million while Mexico had a cylinder population of almost 100 million.

Adesina said that the government needs to move quickly to inject cylinders nationwide if it must keep its commitment to reducing emission.

He stressed that banning importation now would not be a solution, adding that the rather logical thing to do would be to gradually build local capacity until the nation can become self-sufficient in production.