26 July 2016, Abuja – The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) says it is pursuing a growth plan which will require up to $2bn (about N600bn) to revamp Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), cooking gas, plants and build new Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) plants across the country in the next five years.
The plan was revealed in a document made available to investors by the NNPC at a recent road show in China, where a memorandum of understanding (MoU) worth over $80bn to be invested in oil and gas infrastructure was signed with some Chinese companies.
CNG is gas used in place of petrol or diesel in light-to-medium-duty-trucks, buses and cars manufactured for CNG use.
CNG use was low in Nigeria, prompting the Nigerian Gas Company (NGC), a subsidiary of the NNPC, to construct a number of medium-sized public CNG refuelling stations across the country.
The facilities for upgrade, according to the NNPC tender, were the Apapa LPG Plant, Ilorin, Ibadan and Enugu LPG plants.
Other plants that have been placed for repairs were the Kano LPG Plant, Gusau, Gombe and Makurdi LPG plants.
Prices of LPG or cooking gas have been skyrocketing in the last few months due to supply and infrastructure hitches but stakeholders say that resuscitation of the bottling plants would solve supply hitches and make pricing competitive.