Nigeria’s population is rising, and so is the demand for fuel. Today, petrol and diesel are the main transport fuels used in the country, but they come with economic and environmental costs. Since the recent decision to remove fuel subsidy from the pricing template of petrol, the price of the commodity has spiked from about N145 per litre to about N161.

In this regard, Nigeria’s federal government has found in Autogas and CNG a cheaper and reliable alternative for car owners and motorists in the country, and wants to make vehicle conversions affordable to all Nigerians.

Moreover, the government has expressed its plan to have up to one million vehicles – mostly passenger and haulage vehicles – running on Autogas or natural gas instead of petrol or diesel by the end of 2021.

To accomplish this, it explained that it is optimistic that the N250 billion financial facility recently earmarked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to fund the Autogas programme amongst other initiatives in its National Gas Expansion Programme (NGEP) would help fast-track vehicle conversion and deployment of required infrastructure for the initiative.

Speaking on the progress of the plan, Justice Derefaka who is the Technical Adviser (TA) on Gas Business and Policy Implementation to the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Timipre Sylva, said Nigeria’s switch to alternative fuels has gained a steady momentum.

Derefaka stated that about 1,000 conversion kits for trucks and smaller vehicles will be deployed nationwide by third parties in the programme while 50 conversion centres are currently been upgraded for mass conversion and trainings.

While the government equally targets to create two million new jobs per year from the programme, Derefaka explained that by the second quarter of 2021, 600 NNPC-leased and affiliate co-location stations will be brought into the scheme. By then, he said that, “about one million conversion kits for trucks and smaller vehicles will be deployed, one million vehicles expected to run on Autogas.”

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28 October 2020