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 in Lagos on Sunday.
According to him, the only LPG cylinder manufacturing company in the country located at Isheri in Ogun , has capacity to produce 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.
The executive secretary said it would also enhance the use of cleaner fuel supply, thereby, reducing environmental pollution in the country.
It would also reduce the utilisation of firewood which would discourage deforestation, he said.
Wabate said that the board would develop a funding- model to support would-be investors.
He said this had led the board to go into partnership with the Bank of Industry (BoI).
NCDMB was created to realise Federal Government’s aspiration of increasing indigenous participation in the oil and gas industry, build local capacity, and create linkages with other sectors of the national economy.