The Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) says that Nigerians need no less than three million Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) also, known as cooking gas cylinders, annually. Mr Simbi Wabate, the Executive Secretary of the Board, disclosed this to the News Agency of Nigeria in Lagos on Sunday.

According to him, the only LPG cylinder manufacturing company in the country located at Isheri in Ogun , produces about 400,000 cooking gas cylinders yearly. He said this was far below what Nigerian homes required annually. He said that this had encouraged the in-flow of substandard and expired LPG cylinders into the country.

Wabate said that in order to stop this, the board had conceived what he called “the local manufacture of liquefied gas cylinders’ initiative’’. He said this would create employment opportunities, stop importation of LPG cylinders and jump-start a new cylinder-producing industry. According to him, the initiative is connected to the Federal Government’s domestic gas utilisation programme aimed at encouraging the use of cooking gas by every home in the country.

He said that studies had shown that for domestic gas utilisation programme to pull through; there was the need to address the availability, affordability and acceptability of LPG and its cylinders by all stakeholders. Wabate said the initiative would make cylinders affordable and create a new industry in the LPG value chain with respect to local manufacturing.

NAN.