Bothered by the soaring cost of Liquefied Petroleum Gas(LPG) also known as cooking gas, the Federal Government (FG) on Thursday, said it has stopped exportation of the commodity to crash prices.

This was even as it disclosed ongoing talks with critical stakeholders and international oil companies-Shell, Chevron, Mobil, among others to address the situation. 

The Minister of Petroleum Resources (Gas) Ekperikpe Ekpo made the disclosure at the “Internal Stakeholders’ Workshop,” in Abuja.

According to him, the move will ensure that all LPG produced in the country is domesticated, noting that this will increase volume and crash prices. 

His words:“On the issue of LPG (cooking gas), we are interacting with the critical sectors to ensure that there is no exportation of LPG. All LPG produced within the country will have to be domesticated. And when this is done, the volume will increase and, of course, the price will automatically crash.

“I am in contact with the regulator, NMDPRA, we have meetings almost daily with the producers of the gas like Mobil, Chevron and Shell. So there is that hope that things will turn around.

“And that is also why we are having this engagement to know exactly what the problems are so that we can address them once and for all.”

The price of LPG has steadily been on the rise especially in 2023 when this was further aggravated by significant fluctuations influenced by market dynamics and governmental policy changes. 

In an effort to salvage the situation, the FG in December 2023, exempted the importation of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and its equipment from the payment of customs duty and value-added tax (VAT).

Although this was expected to crash prices across the country, instead it has continued to soar as experienced recently, when the price of 12.5KG of cooking gas moved from N12,000 to over N14,000, 6kg sells for N7,000 while 3kg now goes for N3,500

Meanwhile, as of December 2023, the average price of 12.5KG cooking gas across States according to data from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS) was N11,500 while 5KG is N4962.

However, Ekpo reiterated government’s to addressing the situation saying:“With the issue of gas, you have seen the demonstration of the Federal Government by withdrawing all taxes and levies from the importation of gas-related equipment. It is a big incentive.”

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