OpeOluwani Akintayo
Lagos — The Group Managing Director, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Mallam Mele Kyari has said retailing stations operated by the state oil firm would commence sale of the Compressed Natural Gas, CNG by December.
“We are deploying in all our stations. Like we said, by December we will deploy it in all NNPC stations. We would have deployed it to all our retail stations. We are expanding and by next year, we will see this deployed in 200 to 300 stations across the country, not only NNPC stations,” Kyari told reporters in Abuja.
According to him, the deployment will be extended to independent retail stations as the NNPC plans to replicate the plants in non-NNPC owned petrol stations by the end of 2021.
Technical Adviser on Gas Business & Policy Implementation to the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources; Timipre Sylva, Engr. Justice O. Derefaka had on Monday, revealed that the federal government had listed over 9000 stations for co-location of autogas nationwide this year as part of the process of replacing preference for fossil with Liquefied Natural Gas, LNG, and CNG.
According to him, the changes would affect 9000 non-NNPC stations with 46 stations belonging to the state-owned firm co-located by fourth quarter 2020.
He explained that while about one thousand conversion kits for trucks and smaller vehicles will be redeployed nationwide by third parties, 50 conversion centers are currently upgrading for mass conversion and training.
Justice Derefaka added that already, auto assemblers are producing fit-for-purpose dual fuel vehicles in-country, as over 3000 vehicles are already running on dual fuels in Nigeria.
The conversion, he said, would create two million jobs per annum.
On government’s plan for 2012 he said, there would be 600 NNPC lease and affiliate colocation by second quarter 2021.
This he said would require about one million conversion kits for trucks and smaller vehicles to be deployed, adding that one million vehicles are expected to have been running on autogas by end of 2021.